as the international community continues to weigh its response, the news out of syria remains dire. this morning the syrian army continued to bomb rebel-held areas of damascus and the bbc has new reports where a napalm bomb was dropped on a school playground on monday. the video is graphic. children are shown with chemical burns. another remainder of a price of inaction and the complexities of war. joining me is matthew iglesias, annie lowrey, "washington post" columnist e.j. deion and political editor and white house correspondent at the huffington post, stan stein. joining us from beirut, lebanon is foreign correspondent, amman mow hadean. >> there is word from the british, they're not going to do anything. what is the reaction to the notion that the president may go it alone as it were?

>> well, now there's a few different sets of reactions. one specifically set because of a u.s. strike on syria and two, the humanitarian consequences of that and three, the possible fallout in terms of regional conflict. obviously, people are concerned about the possibility of a u.s. air strike or any type of strike given the fact that there has been intervention that is ended so disastrously in iraq and elsewhere. the concern among the governments has do more with the concern of security and that in places like lebanon, they've already seen violence from syria spill over here. this is a very divided country in terms of ethnic makeup. a lot of is actually mirrors inside of syria. they're afraid if there's a conflict from syria that spreads across the region, countries like lebanon will definitely feel that pinch. more importantly, on a humanitarian level, you look at countries like jordan, turkey, lebanon, they've had hundreds of

thousands of refugees pour across the border. in the past couple of days alone, there's been an influx in lebanon. it gives you a sense of the anxiety taking place among syrians of a possible military strike. that already has these countries buckling under pressure, including jordan and lebanon. they don't want to see a humanitarian situation worsen with a possible u.s. air strike. they don't have the resources to cope with the influx of possible refugees if that were to happen. so there is a lot of different angles to approach the possible reaction. but the concern that's also been coming out from countries like iran is that they have said in the past that they would come to the defense of syria and that any possible attack on syria would essentially mean an attack on the region and that's something that has people very much on edge, alex. >> e.j., i am really torn approximate this. as someone that believes in humanitarian intervention, you look at what's happened in syria, 100,000 people dead, 1.5 million refugees as aman

explains, regional crisis. it has little to do with the humanitarian disaster and more about the crossing of the red line and this a question of deterrence than anything else. you read the assessment from generals in the "washington post" who say there is a broad naivete. scary simplicity about the effects that employing military power can achieve. that, among other reasons, makes me very reticent about where we seem to be headed. >> i am torn too. i am torn because, on the one hand, if there is something that you want intervene to stop, send a message about, it is the use of chemical weapons. we're not talking here about whether they have them. if the evidence is right, which is one of the big questions is that they actually use them. but i think there's great reluctance on the part of a lot of people to decide in a civil war, are you picking al qaeda on the one side or hezbollah on the

other. where is our interest? and then you had the british parliament vote last night against action repudiating david cameron. this is the sort of thing that often brings governments down. my favorite tweet of the morning was "the new york times" columnist who said maybe we should call english muffins, freedom muffins. and french fries can be french fries again because he seems more on our side than cameron is. >> one point about that. think back to iraq. democrats fell in line behind president bush or were afraid not to, a lot of them. some opposed the war. republicans were united. this time republicans have such a strong anti-obama instinct, either they're saying he's wrong or trying to have it both ways. we should attack but not the way he wants to attack. as you suggest, a lot of democrats are either hesitant, opposed or ambivalent. so the president is really out

there, but he's still stuck with his red line and that is a big problem. >> that sort of calls into the question the red line, right, sam? the president, unlike bush, is not looking for reasons to go to war. i think he wishes desperately that there was no red line, right? nick cross to have makes the case that it's an important thing to ensure, important for the u.s. to not back down having said what we've said about the red line. he writes, are we making too much of chemical weapons, probably less than 1% died of nerve gas attacks. in syria, a principal weapon of mass destruction is the ak-47. yet, there is value in bolstering international norms against egregious behavior like genocide or the use of chemical weapons. since president obama established the red line, he can't whimper and back down. >> the question is what compels someone to use military force.

nick kristof is right. a large swath died not because of chemical weapons but because of the assad regime. is that a compelling reason to send in troops? i don't know. i don't cover foreign policy or syria. this is a very complex issue. the scariest thing i read -- >> you cover the white house. >> the scariest thing i read was in the a.p. yesterday, they were talking about how little intelligence they actually had about where assad was stockpiling his weapons. there was a line in there to the effect that we could end up bombing syria, sort of blind and trigger a chemical weapons reaction because we hit the stockpile. that's how little intelligence we actually have about the situation right now. it should give people a lot of pause before we devote any resources into the country. one last thing. with respect to the military generals quoted in the post piece, we're seeing the residual effects of iraq still. i think there's so much antipathy toward using military action partly because they were

making the same points prior to iraq and iran. skeptical in listening to the military on these matters. skeptical of another -- not just in the united states but in england as well. >> the specter of iraq has informed almost every aspect of this debate. y you look at what's happening in rye iraq. 4,000 civilians killed this year, 10,000 wounded. iraq isn't even over. it's one of the bloodiest years since the u.s.-led invasion. madden, i think a lot of people say elections were won on and run faced on opposition to the war in iraq. if congress were to be given a vote on syria, i think congress wants to have those votes on the record given how they came back to haunt many people in congress who cast votes for the iraq invasion. >> you can tell members of congress, ideal strategy is to duck this vote. they see that the obama administration is going off with -- a very strange strategy. they're talking about going to

war, launching military strikes, not going for regime change. whatever happens, you're going to criticize whatever the white house has done. >> which is the new governing strate strategy. >> this is a very -- the president made the statement about red lines and now they've been crossed. that's a big problem for him. clearly, he feels he has to do something in response. but is this something that makes the situation better in the people in the administration seem to have a low confidence that they're actually going to help anyone or improve anything. that should really give us pause, the norm against chemical weapons use is -- so is the norm about starting wars for no reason. >> it's not just the red line about chemical weapons. the president was saying assad must go. now we're hearing they're not in it for regime change. there's a general incoherence in the strike that skri. >> yeah. the incoherence is undermined the white house argument. there is a sense, annie, that

the president does not -- he was the guy that was going to get us out of iraq and afghanistan, get us out of entanglements in the middle east. and keeps getting pulled back over there. he's the guy that does not want to send us to war. yet now, weirdly, he kind of sort of has to make good at the burden of proof is on the obama administration to go have military engagements in syria, which is a stunning and strange -- i won't say reversal of fortune but flipping of the tables. >> absolutely. i think the white house has been very unclear about what they know and their goals. i think they're also struggling with the fact that if we bomb this country, we're going to kill civilians. we're going to kill children. if you're not doing that without a clear goal in mind, unless you can explain to the american people and to members of congress why you're doing it, i think this is a deeply, deeply unpopular thing do. i think that the unfortunate thing for the obama administration is it looks like they've boxed themselves in.

>> yes. >> i think that's right. the incoherence you describe comes from his ambivalence. >> yes. >> he is really looking for a kind of middle ground and when it comes to war, it's really hard to find a middle ground. >> can i interrupt you. because charles cow hammer who i have been weirdly quoting, not weirdly quoting but we quote him all the time. charles crowd hammer is my buy. barack obama has been shamed into action he writes. it doesn't commit soldiers to war for which he has zero enthusiasm, nor does one go to war for demonstration purposes. a serious instrument of war demands a serious purpose. i am sore toy interrupt you. >> no. that's where he's getting from both sides. a weird form of bipartisanship we're seeing here. you know, matt said that the red line is a problem for him, which, it is. ultimately, it's also a problem for us as americans. if the president has said

something very clearly and this was pretty clear, and it involves something that's really important and the use of chemical weapons is really important, then what does he look like if he says oh, never mind. another column, my colleague david ignatius, said the president's credibility with the israelis, with the saudis, in the meade comes back to him. >> this is much about iran as syria. if you set a red line for syria and violate or let it be violated, i should say. the message to iran is terrible. that's where the president is boxed in. he has to think about the next two steps, not just the next one. ayman, i want to ask you about that. how effective it would be on actor like iran. this would be in theory a limited strike. let's say it incapacitates his chemical weapons capabilities. does that scare iran? is the long-term goal possible

to accomplish given, as we've discussed, america's deteriorated standing in the middle east? >> the way that iran and its ally hezbollah and syria look at this possible strike and look at the u.s. pour rein policy against those three in specific is that there's an access that they're trying to break. they describe themselves as an access to western imperialism and israel. they try to maintain that. obviously israel is in their perspective the greatest threat. more importantly, they have a conduit of transferring weapons and funds between iran and syria and hezbollah to here in lebanon. that's an access that the three of them feel is important to count oar the balance. they have come out and actually said an attack on syria is an attempt to break up that access giving them the right to respond and to defend. they don't explain whether that's going to be militarily or how they're going do tla. but i do think that that is one of the major concerns for u.s. military planners, which is the intended stated objective of any u.s. military strike now may be to simply try and limit or perhaps even punish the regime

for using chemical weapons. you cannot control the response afterwards. if the response afterwards comes from syria or its allies that can widen across the region, then you can be blamed for triggering a regional conflict. >> ayman i want to ask as we exit and the sunsets over lebanon, what is the sense, is there a sense of collective anxiety in the region? in the "washington post," folks in damascus are preparing for the worst. what is your sense in terms of the people on the ground and what may come this weekend? >> very much a sense of anxiety. very much a sense of fear. very much a sense of fatigue. a lot of questions of uncertainty. given the fact that this rei don't know is seeing so much upheaval as a result of the arab spring, so much of the policies of the different countries here sometimes contradict one another, who stands with who, who allies with who. how they view this carrying out the strike. they can't take it out of the

perspective of context, out of the perspective of iraq or previous u.s. military engagements and positions. sometimes what people see in this part of the world is a double standard when it comes to humanitarian intervention which is advocated in a place like syria. because of that, people have a sense of anxiety and especially lebanon. all the strings of the conflict inside syria ultimately lead to beirut and to lebanon. that's one of the major concerns among people here. it's a sense of anxiety and fear. >> nbc's ayman mow hadean. on the eve of a dramatic weekend in the muslim word advivisadvi the united states. we'll bring you the remarks live from the state department. after the break, are we getting closer to laying down arms in the war on drugs?

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the justice department to legal pot smokers, smoke 'em if you got 'em. yesterday the doj announced a major shift in the policy. it will not step in to block states from allowing medicinal or recreational use of marijuana. the decision lets states decide whether to let residents light up or not. it comes with qualifiers. states must set up regulations to prevent cartel activity, accidents from drug use and sales to minors among other consequences. the decision is a boon to the

legalization movement. currently 19 states approved medical marijuana use, colorado and washington legalized recreational use six months ago. the issue is on the ballot in alaska next year. coming up, crews in california find creative new ways to fight the massive, out of control rim fire. but the state park is not alone. already this year, wildfires have burned more than 3 1/2 million acres of forest in the united states. we'll discuss the new normal coming up next. we're monitoring the state department where secretary kerry is scheduled to make a statement about the situation in syria in just a few moments. we'll bring you his remarks live, just ahead. the co-owner of the california-based off the grid survival supply store.

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biggest wildfires in california's history continues to blanket the region in smoke. this time life camera documents the size of the plumes in the park. using surveillance drones, crews believe it will be contained fully by the middle of next month. more than 50 wildfires are raging in the western united states bringing the grand total of wildfires this year to 33,000. at a cost of over $1 billion. yosemite is not the only national park under threat. mother jones reports that seven other national parks could feel the heat. the culprit behind the increase in forest fires is a familiar one, climate change. increasingly dry conditions in the western portion of the country literally added pul to the fire. in the past ten years, at least ten states have been hit by the largest or most destructive wildfires in respective histories. the average wildfire burns twice as many acres as it did 40 years ago. as the fires roar, the resources have been drying up. the sequester cut $28 million

from the forest service this year, even though blazes stretched an already tight 2012 budget. perhaps that's why the state of california is continuing to take convicts out of cells and put them on the frontlines of wildfires where they work in 24-hour shifts for $1 an hour. the state estimates it saves taxpayers more than $80 million a year with the cheap labor and recruiting volunteers. said one former firefighting convict, we don't get as much credit as we should, but you can't expect everything. joining us now onset is physical scientist at nasa's goddard space flight center. douglas morton. thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me here. before we get to the economics, i want to talk about the science. the fact that we're seeing violent, dangerous wildfires at -- what would seem to be historic rates. as a scientist, can you explain to us why this is happening now?

>> one of things we can do with data is put this year in context. not only providing real time information about where fires are burning and how much area they've burned in 2013, but we can look back and see how over the u.s. in the last 30 years x we've seen a steady increase in the total amount of burning. that's all types of fires. fires in the mountain west regions, also fires up in alaska, across the u.s. that increase in wildfires is really tightly coupled with the increase in hot and dry conditions. you warm it out. you dry it up. you had less snow pack this year than in many years. that gives you fire weather. when you have that weather in california, colorado, mexico, greece or brazil, it gives you the potential for the very large wildfires. >> you know, matt, we talk about climate change and it's often in the context of recycling or carbon emissions. but this is economically disastrous. you look at the droughts that plagued the midwest and the

literally like an apocalyptic scene in and around yosemite national park in endangering the san fan fran reservoir, where the city gets 85% of the water. yet the conversation around climate change and what to do about it doesn't exist. >> it's very frustrating. i spent a fair amount of time visiting my inlawns in the countryside. lot of dependence on natural resources. people have been talking for years about persistent dry weather conditions, long-term droughts happening there. i'm a liberal from the big east coast. i'm thinking climate change, climate change. the other big thing they talk about is how the environmentalists want to make it harder to drill for oil there. >> you have a governor, governor rick perry who is talking about praying for rain. when that is your default, how much can you really expect in terms of a robust conversation let alone policy, sam? there's also the issue, we put that sequestration to not only

juice your comment -- >> yeah. >> but you've done great reporting on the effect of the sequestration. a long-term in-depth reporting on the effects of sequestration and you look at this, you can't have it both ways. you can't do nothing about the problem and trim the budget that's meant to be there with wh the problems pop up. >> it was a dumb policy and everyone admit that. the reason it was a particularly dumb policy, let me get this fly out of my face, is because it doesn't look at long-term budget impact. it was basically, let's look at things in the first year or two and cut and it didn't look at what you could potentially save if you kept the funding levels. firefighting is one of those things, the u.s. geological survey is not doing flood monitoring. imagine if we have a major flood because of that. you can prevent this. scientific research, if you invest now, you can get huge medical cost savings down the road. that's not what sequestration was about. it was about getting things done right now without any regard for what happens ten years down the road. we're living with it actually

with fires. >> ironically and i think somewhat heartbreakingly, e.j., the same politicians whose states are affected by fires like this and wildfires are the same ones that are doing everything in their power to help continue the dee foresttation through logging or doubling down on fossil fuels, which is to say oil and gas and not looking for any sort of renewable energy, things that might mitigate the risk here. >> there's a lot of that going around, i a lot of the optician to obama care comes from states where the citizens are uninsured. i think the two points you raised and brought together are the right ones, which is the sequester is just a totally dumb policy. we've never -- >> can we say it again? let's say it again the sequester is dumb. >> it's just dumb. we're cutting stuff we know we need.

conservatives know we need as well as liberals and moderates. on global warming, there have been countries where awful events like this changed people's minds. australia went through a whole series of really awful fires and they took steps on global warming. they're still controversial and still debating them. but i think with climate change, every time something like this happens, i think people who are skeptical and you can't blame them. climate change is a very abstract thing. it's got long-term effects. >> but this is -- >> people look at the pictures and say gee, there's weird stuff going on. >> going on. >> i think that may start to make us realize that there are real costst here. >> showing that it's causal. not only not talking about climate change, proud climate change deniers in the u.s. congress. on that level, how do you even draw, how do you begin to connect the dots when there's a fundamental willfulness around

the sort of anti-science thread of the republican party which is increasingly tying elements together. >> i think one of the things you do, is you actually bring this back to things that influence them day-to-day. it gets back to the fires in texas, it gets back to the drought and crop damage and losses in the midwest. you bring back to things and influence them. across the western u.s., fires are impacting people in a way that we haven't seen on a consistent basis in our history. >> we make that point. we make this personal. >> i want to ask, in terms of actually combatting the fires themselves, in reading up about this, kierein from the center psychological diversity makes the point we shouldn't send firefighters to stop these. he says the political liability of a house burning down is greater than the political liability of having a firefighter die. that we're okay with firefighters and frontline

defenders dying in the name of stopping these things and much more okay with that as a society than letting the fire sort of do what they will and burn down houses and houses of the wealthy and get close or threaten civilization. >> it's a set of tradeoffs. we have these opportunities to protect life and property. we have people building in and around flammable vegetation. we have other areas, the hetch hetchy reservoir that services not just the people living in and around that national park, but obviously the large city of san francisco. when we think about whether to move in with information that we can provide, for example, from a nasa satellite where fires have started and are burning, it's a decision on the tradeoffs. the smoke that comes from those fires has to come into the picture as well. >> yeah. >> smoke from the fires is stretching all across north america. that propagates out into the earth and the climate system just the way that we want to prevent in the future. if the fires start up a feedback cycle that makes fires more

likely, then there might be other reasons why suppression could be a good idea in certain places and locations. it's got to be a tradeoff between what the benefits and costs are to human and natural society. >> and the smoke point is well-taken. it is a cycle. really at this point of despair. we'll continue to follow the story, doug. thanks for your time. douglas gordon from the nasa goddard space flight center. here's a live look at the state department where we're expecting to hear from john kerry about syria. kerry was at the white house where we're told president obama held a meeting with national security team. we'll bring you kerry's statement live just ahead. ♪ fire, fire, you can take me higher ♪ ♪ take me to the mountains, start a revolution ♪ ♪ hold my hand, we can make, we can make a contribution ♪ ♪ brand-new season, keep it in motion ♪ ♪ 'cause the rhyme is the reason ♪ ♪ break through, man, it doesn't matter who you're talking to ♪ [ male announcer ] completely redesigned for whatever you love to do. the all-new nissan versa note. your door to more.

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him up. i was not a fan of mr. assad. he's an ally of iran and he's made mischief. >> oh, e.j. mr. assad has made mischief according to former president george w. bush. >> i don't agree with him much but i'm not a fan of mr. assad. everybody agrees this is a brutal regime. has been going back to the time of his father. of course, the question is what do we do about it? the question has always been asked. there are a lot of brutal regimes in the world. when do we choose to act? when we talk about expecting what john kerry is going to say, if indeed we're acting, i expect him to go back to that very morally rooted language he used a couple of days ago saying we've got no choice but to act when they use chemical weapons. but that still won't explain

what the strategy is and i hope the rest of his statement is involved in explaining what we're going to do after. >> i mean, annie, it's also -- we talk a lot about iraq, as we're having the conversation about iraq and to what degree syria is similar or dissimilar, having george bush pop up and talk about making mischief, the whole thing i think for people and both the president's base and the right wing, it's very uncomfortable place to be because there is a real sense of -- i won't even say battle fatigue. as george packard said, it's a giant wound making them afraid of making a mistake or being on the wrong side of history. we talk about certainty. in this day and anyone, because of institutional failure and of course what has happened in the middle east, i don't think anybody really truly believes in certainty anymore. like there is no such thing. for the president to be able to lay out a case even with the best intelligence, i'm not sure you could sell that to the american public given the

skepticism that runs through american society. >> absolutely. you think back to iraq where i think it was unclear what the strategy was, unclear what we were going do once we invaded. you had the coalition. you had congress behind you. it was popular at the time. the american people were behind you. i think it's got to be weighing on the wiet house they're doing this alone. they didn't set up the groundwork a coalition. now that britain has had this failed vote and said they're not going to join, i think it's hard to argue that you're doing this for humanitarian reasons. >> we're not. >> punitive reasons but you're doing it alone. >> i think actually, to some degree the coalition of the willing can't be a creation of the united states. it seems like david cameron got over his skis. that was a strong rebuke from the british parliament, sam. >> let's not overplay the coalition of the willing. he was trumpeting as like the big member, this is -- that was never a major coalition.

it's not going to be now. >> where is poland on syria? >> i don't know. the real question, i think, and we were talking about offset is this foreboding sense of mission creep. you go in with this plan, limited strategic strike and let's say it doesn't work, because it might not work. then what happens if assad comes back and does something more brutal than what he's alleged to have done and what seems he has done. do we have to go in further with more bombs? there are so many unanswered questions, until we get more answers, we'll be skeptical. the more people will die the longer we wait. this is the box the president is in. >> from the humanitarian point, why is it we focus in on this question? i've been reading about other things. the world health organization says with about a billion more dollars in the next five years, they could eradicate polio. you have any number of charitable groups working in africa to get blood parasites out of little children that

prevent them from eating abdomen and going to school. we can walk and chew gum at the same time. but to an extent, there's a limited amount of bandwidth at the top. there's so many meetings about this unsolvable problem in syria and tv shows about it. there's lots of other problems that the country could be -- where we can be so much more certain that our means will actually be effective. here, it would be fantastic if a limited bombing would end this humanitarian crisis in syria. does anything think it will? >> i would say a couple things. i would say a couple things to that. one is, i don't think you can overstate the gruesomeness of seeing little children get napalmed and gassed to death. as bad as polio is and as bad as blood borne diseases are, you become inoculated to those. i'm not saying that's a good thing. the graphic nature of what's happened in syria and if you read the accounts of what's happened to civilians, men, women and children, it is for

people who think of themselves as a compassionate country hard to stand idly by. that's not why we're going into syria. we're going in to deter bad actors from using chemical weapons against their own population. >> if the obama administration set as the red line no more deaths from polio, but that isn't what they said. perhaps unfortunately, for them, because they think it would be easier to eradicate polio. i don't think that they have that kind of peter singerian sense that every life should be valued the same. >> right. i think matt did something we should always do is let's stack up the cost of war and defense against a whole lot of other things we do. but i don't think if we -- we're not going to pretend that we can solve the problems of the middle east or even syria itself. what the president has said he's both stuck with it and it's why he said it in the first place. war is always awful but certain

forms of war are so awful and so unacceptable that we simply, we meaning the rest of the world, the civilized community, whatever you want to call us all, can't tolerate a have to take action. but there's politics at the end of that and what happens later. >> this is where the analogy to iraq falls short. i think the ambition of this is so much more limited. with iraq, it was going to topple the saddam hussein regime and then the reaction that happened afterwards which was naive i thought. we're not even talking about regime change even though he said assad must go. this is about resetting the deck for the rebels to do their thing, whatever that thing is. >> or not do their thing, if they're really aligned with al qaeda. >> we talked about how little we know about the rebel factions. what we're doing with respect to arming these people. because we don't know who they are. back to my original point. this is a much less ambitious

enterprise than iraq ever was for a good reason. i think in that sense, obama has a few benefits to him. he can go to congress and say listen, we're not trying to commit ourselves to a broad neo conservative vision here. we're trying do something tactical and quick. >> if you read the letter that speaker boehner sent to the president. it wants answers. that would be nice to know the answers to those questions. who is going to give assad and his regime a playbook. e.j., for a moment if you will, can we get out the best scenario for the president. we spent a lot of time on the worst case scenario which is this metastasizes to something bloodier and costlier. what if assad is hobbled and the punishment is meeted out, what is the reaction, domestically and in terms of congress. we're shaping up for a big fight in the fall.

i wonder to what degree this changes or affects the dynamics of that? >> i think that your times column you read earlier, probably laid out the best case scenario which is that even though we're not engaged in regime change, this bombing would weaken assad enough to change the balance of power and the war so there's pressure on him to negotiate and maybe we'd take a step toward solving this problem. but there's just no guarantee that that's what effect this is going to have. i do think it's disturbing that congress isn't involved here. it's disturbing on both sides. in some ways, i'd like obama to say come on back guys, let's debate this. but i'd also like these members of congress raising all these questions, if they have all these questions, why can't they be like the brits, boehner and harry reid calls everybody back and says let's have a quick debate. >> that's how this congress works by sort of standing on ceremony and actually --

>> debt limit. >> tie it to obama care. ted cruz said this was -- obama's position on syria was like his position on obama care and this administration was full of hubris and all sorts of nonsense. you know, you have to think -- i agree with you, jay. it would be nice to see congress involved with this. matt, at the same time, why in god's name would the president go involve a congress that seems dead set against him? >> why would he involve congress and why would members of congress want to be involved? this is a very thorny situation. i don't think anyone has an enormous amount of confidence that they understand this. i said john boehner's letter was shrewd. he didn't need to take stances on his own. that's a smart position for him. you have to admire that. >> chief pea munut in the peanu gallery. we're expecting to hear from john kerry just ahead. we've ma.

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we're awaiting a statement from secretary of state john kerry at the state department. annie, we may have to cut over to him any second now. we were talking in the break about the cost of this. this is os sentence bli supposed to be a limited engagement. sam says we have emergency funds at the ready. it does beg the question, what happens at some point if the president needs to get congress to authorize the use of more funds? >> it's an interesting question. because at some point if that needed to happen, he would have to go to congress. i don't think that's a vote that it looks like the house is willing to -- >> no, unless he -- >> it would be shocking. i can't remember another time that republicans would have waffled on providing more military funding. who knows how that would go. it goes back to e.j's point. it will be interesting to see if there's a declaration of war. there's a lot of questions that the legal and the financial

implications. >> it's a question about the republican parity, too, it isn t isn't -- with the rand paul wing that's a kren dant and real talk of isolationism. >> you've already had a strong wing of the republican party. you saw it in the clinton years on kosovo and bosnia. that wing went totally underground in the bush years. they're a little bit on the sides but most republicans went along with that. what you're seeing is a revival of that anti-interventionist sentiment which rand paul represents. plus, there are reflects of opposition as to what anything obama does. what's so striking are those republicans who haven't interventionists but are saying the way obama is doing it is wrong. >> right. >> the case is where they really want to overthrow assad. they think this is a half

measure. it's just a very odd position to be in. >> john mccain comes out and says there will be no boots on the ground. why aren't we pushing for regime change? we can't do that without boots on the ground. >> one of the few republicans o who did speak out during the bush years about skepticism is now the defense secretary. he's going to be ostensibly having a big role here. this is a very important time for chuck hagel. it will reveal a lot about how he has his position to see what influence he has in the administration, what kind of imprint he has on it. >> that's right. >> it's interesting that we're waiting for john kerry's statement now to chuck hagel's statement about a military strike. i wonder with the funding politics, how this will play into the sequestration. they won't provide relief to the defense side of the sequester unless there's a comprehensive solution and that has to include taxes. that's been a politically dicey argument. but they've held the line

solidly. how hard is it to keep that up if we're actively fighting a war of some kind? if bombing starts and if assad doesn't back down and we need to escalate and then john boehner says, you know what, it's time to take the sequestration lid off the military so the troops can get the fuel and all that kind of stuff, is the president really going to say, no. we're not going to fund this war unless we raise taxes? that doesn't sound very logical to me. >> go ahead. >> or very popular. but the other thing is, were is it john kerry and not the president? maybe he's not going to move immediately. you would think if we were on the verge of acting, the president would announce it. and so why kerry, not hagel, not the president of the united states? >> the other question is where is kerry? >> where is john kerry? we've been waiting for you for half an hour. >> we can't keep this

conversation up. >> look, the thing about syria, though, is it's so multifaceted, right? we haven't gone into the iran part of this. haven't talked about turkey or the refugee crisis. we haven't talked about the long-term implications. we haven't talked about al qaeda. sam, you said yourself, we have not talked about the opposition forces almost at all in this debate. >> we know very little. >> what we know is we were researching iraq information in preparation for this segment, iraq is calling it al qaeda and iraq and syria. that, if we talk about dark clouds looming, the prospect of a resurgent al qaeda in syria as well as iraq, that's a whole completely different facet. >> this is why we've avoided arming the rebel factions largely to this point. we're so uncertain about where the weapons will end up, in whose hands. the other option is a no-fly zone. for various reasons we got rid of that. now we're looking at a limited stra teej cal -- this gas back

to the same point i'm making time and time again, the cupboard is very bare. there's little options other than to put boots on the ground which no one would support at this juncture. >> it also goes to the point of the war ont terror, right? he gave the speech at the university saying at some point we need to return to a pre-9/11 not mentality but we cannot wage an endless war. >> you can tell the war is -- >> i'm sure the white house would take -- >> in our sort of -- we have a slate france outlet. sister publication. they had a french language publication based on french military sources where they said that the french government was concerned that they wanted to do air strikes but didn't want to destroy the syrian air force because they felt the rebels might win. you know, so that's part of like the diceyness of this. they wanted to enforce this red line and this norm against chemical weapons use and do

something that would hurt or make people think it's bad. they didn't actually want to decisively shift the balance of power. the chemical weapons stockpiles could go god knows where if things fall apart. it's difficult for western planners when you don't want the guys you're striking to lose. >> you know, i think it's now obvious that the administration is buying time to sort all of this out. i do think that -- you think about the department of defense, right? >> the administration and this panel buying time. >>. >> i think we're doing a good job. >> very good job of keeping the ball rolling. >> it's not clear for the united states what would be in the united states' best interest either in terms of quieting the region down, making it safer, you know, ending the killing. i don't think it's obvious at all. i think it's got to be the hardest question approximate this is what the united states is strategic interest is. >> again, the big question in the middle east. we haven't even talked about

egypt, e.j. which is to say, things are incredibly unsettled there. as much as the president talked about pivoting away, it is evermore clear by the day that we are not free from the middle east and are either -- the threats that face us that are borne out of the middle east or strategically. we have an iron in the fire in making sure the middle east is a stable place. >> let's go almost to armageddon. what we're talking about potentially is a sort of regionwide conflict between sunnis and shia. it's not that simple. what syria and egypt have in common is a certain excessive optimism on the part of the administration. not just the administration. in egypt's case, they hoped that muslim brotherhood would be elected, would understand that there were limits on their power, would actually deal with the nonbrotherhood, nonislamist

forces in a way that would create unity and in syria, they really thought assad would fall a whole lot quicker than he did. so now when neither egypt nor syria -- >> here's the man of the hour. secretary of state john kerry is walking out to finally give a statement on seer wra at the state department. let's listen in. >> president obama has spent many days now consulting with congress and talking with leaders around the world about the situation in syria. last night the president asked all of us on his national security team to consult with the leaders of congress as well, including the leadership of the congressional national security committees. and asked us to consult about what we know regarding the horrific chemical weapons attack in the damascus suburbs last

week. i will tell you that as someone who spent nearly three decades in the united states congress, i know that that consultation is the right way for a president to approach a decision of when and how and if to use military force. it's important to ask the tough questions and get the tough answers before taking action, not just afterwards. i believe, as president obama does, that it is also important to discuss this trektly with the american people. that's our responsibility. to talk with the citizens who have entrusted all of us in the administration and the congress with responsibility for their security. that's why this morning's release of our government's unclassified estimate of what took place in syria is so important. its findings are as clear as

they are compelling. i'm not asking you to take my word for it. read for yourself, everyone, those listening, all of you read for yourselves the evidence from thousands of sources, evidence that is already publicly available and read for yourselves the verdict reached by our intelligence community about the chemical weapons attack, the assad regime inflicted on the opposition and on opposition controlled or contested neighborhoods in the damascus suburbs on the early morning of august 21st. our intelligence community has carefully reviewed and re-reviewed information regarding this attack. and i will tell you it has done so more than mindful of the iraq experience. we will not repeat that moment. accordingly, we have taken

unprecedented steps to declassify and make facts available to people who can judge for themselves but still, in order to protect sources and methods, some of what we know will only be released to members of congress, the representatives of the american people. that means that some things we do know we can't talk about publicly. so what do we really know that we can talk about? well, we know that the assad regime has the largest chemical weapons program in the entire middle east. we know that the regime has used those weapons multiple times this year. and has used them on a smaller scale but still it has used them against its own people, including not very far from where last wednesday's