the conflict in syria and what it means for the president of the united states and the world former ambassador to morocco marc ginsberg weighs in plus our politicking panel tackles the ladies news you need to know that's next on politics with larry king. i've. i politicking i'm larry king the obama administration's decision to start arming some syrian opposition group says provoked sharply mixed reactions here to discuss that now a lot of other international issues is ambassador marc ginsberg he served as u.s. ambassador to morocco in the clinton administration also served as jimmy with the recorder is deputy senior advisor to the president for mideast policy we thank mark

for joining us he's a good friend mark you wrote for the huffington post that even though legendary houdini can't get the united states out of its syrian straight jacket or even. well larry the problem is is that ever since the civil war began in syria the administration has had a default position which is we do not want to get involved and yet the president called for assad to go early on and then he declared that there would be a red line in the event that assad used chemical weapons which he has crossed indeed assad has crossed that and he ministration has been under a lot of pressure from our allies both in the middle east as well as in europe to escalate our military involvement not withstanding the diplomatic failures that we have not been able to achieve so far in so far as getting the syrians to agree among themselves for a conference and to negotiate a settlement so all in all the administration is tied itself up in

a straitjacket and what does it do on the world stage for example the conflict as we saw this week with with mr putin why is russia so adamant in support of the syrian administration. larry the russians have had a thirty year love affair with the assad family going back to bashar assad's father off as all assad they have first of all syria is a one of their major arms purchasers number two they have a principal naval facility on the mediterranean port in syria number three ponies play in real politics bipolar foreign policy in the middle east where he sees syria as a counterweight to american interests in the region and finally larry most importantly assad is a shiite the last thing that the russians want to do is see a sunni takeover in syria that could funnel more extremists sunni's into the

caucuses which has been as you know the breakaway republic area of sea of russia a surprise that a former president clinton joined senator mccain in criticizing the president. i'm not surprised at all because president clinton understands the not only you have you have a humanitarian catastrophe where so much of syrian refugee and humanitarian problems are spilled over into lebanon into jordan and now into israel as well let alone into turkey number one and number two i think he also clinton also understands the consequences of the syrian civil war more strategically than his white house seems to and that is that this conflict is now essentially become no longer contain within syria jordan has been destabilized there's been a penetration of military rockets across the border with go on nights into syria into israel lebanon is increasingly destabilized and hezbollah is now involved

itself there it's become a proxy war now on the sunni and shiite divide as well as between saudi arabia and qatar in the one hand and iran on the other and so it has all of the ingredients here for one big middle east mess before we get to some other topics was the end game. well i'm afraid that the endgame is not looking very palatable for the united states assad most likely is going to retain his control over at least a good portion of syria because iran and russia point arms in to support him and has was poured troops in to support him. as. news for frontin in syria's continuing to prove war provide extremist sunni support where indeed we are seeing the beginnings of a failed state in parts of syria so you're going to see the civil war continue because the vengeance factor larry is going to be incredible just think of all the

tens of thousands of people who've lost their children or their loved ones to this conflict and will want to extract vengeance on whoever they think ultimately cause those casualties that date is a mess. moving other things edward snowden he supplied the information about the n.s.a. surveillance hero a traitor. i think he's a traitor i think that he's a traitor for one reason and one reason only he's not a whistleblower because never avail themselves of the whistle blowing laws that would have an effect protected him he seems to be more inclined to call the united states out on what essentially is more or less a policy that congress and administrations have agreed to before and that's the problem here if we don't want to have a state where surveillance becomes a necessary part of our national security then congress has to change the law there's nothing that i can at least see that congress has done or that the administration that is done here that it's illegal it's consistently illegal you

may not like the policy and snowden may not have liked the policy but that's been the policy that more or less is the law of the land mr obama the president made his first trip to europe in two years the gallup poll published earlier this year shows european approval of the united states is at thirty six percent that's a drop of eleven. points what's going on. several things larry these are great is obvious think residual disappoint with the president's performance during the european financial crisis number one number two there's a sense that the transatlantic relationship is a drift because there's disagreements not only within the european union over a free trade agreement that's transatlantic that administration seems to be supporting but not really throwing a lot of weight behind a number three there's a there's a sense within france and great britain our strongest allies there along with germany that when it comes to issues such as the middle east syria the united

states indeed is leading from behind and not prepared to activate itself more forcefully in exert its will on on these complicated situations so i think the public is growing disillusioned moralist with the president's performance in europe but he make of the new president of iran well let's be clear here while we should be somewhat encouraged that mr romney is someone who we may be able to do business with and who indeed reflects the more quote moderate unquote wing of the presidential candidates in the final disposition of the iran nuclear program rests with only one person and that's with the ayatollah he alone makes the decisions about whether to negotiate with the united states or not at the same time ronnie was elected because the iranian people are tired and disgusted with their isolation with the regime so policies from before so look can we be hopeful that there may be submit course correction let's hope so but remember several years ago

a similar type of occurrence occurred where there was a more moderate president elected his name was hot to me and his legs were cut off by the ayatollah when he tried to in effect negotiated more moderate foreign policy for iran i hope that's not again the type of story we see repeated again and sort of as there is always good talking with you and that see you again i hope we have you on many times. my pleasure larry thank you so much thank you mark many thanks to ambassador marc ginsberg and joining us now in los angeles reed dickens republican strategist the former white house assistant press secretary for george w. bush in new york our old friend marc lamont hill host for the huffington post live is also associate professor at teachers college at columbia university and in washington andy crowell investigative journalist and writer for mother jones he's also associate editor for tom dispatch dot com and our panel is assembled to leave her best of begins where marc lamont hill he was very critical of the president

what did you think there there's enough room right now to be critical the president on every single friend whether it's the foreign policy from we talk about syria whether we're talking about iran with its own n.s.a. i mean the president is in a bad bag right now with making even more problematic is the fact that the polls are suggesting that the american people don't trust him they don't believe in him they don't see him as being the person move us forward i think that's a momentary snapshot and things will turn around but i think there's so many indications that the president is moving in the wrong direction and if you agree with that why did he what he wanted to go wrong on syria. well i mean the president has tried to take his cautious and as measured of an approach as he can on syria some folks as we've just heard don't believe that the president the president to has been aggressive enough that he has not addressed this you know clearly there's this horrible civil war not at least ninety thousand people have been killed the president thinks he's doing the right thing we see bloodshed on

television and we see bloodshed in the headlines and and you know there's a whole range of voices here saying the president hasn't tackle this issue well enough and that he's not leading with the force that he should and and that's a debate that's ongoing read some time ago he said assad must go what what went wrong you know first i want to back up i think in a situation like syria when you're doing. sure interviews and media a lot of times you hear people frame things as right i don't think there's any right and wrong decision here i think every day president obama is having to re-evaluate very gray situation i think he's having a bit of a leap kind of a communications issue every day i think he has more information obviously than we do and the congress does but president obama is getting kind of a he's becoming a victim of his own words any time there's a there is a lack of clarity on where america stands on an issue it creates a vacuum it creates questions in the world it creates questions in the media it creates questions on capitol hill i think is having more of a leadership problem that it really is more than it is a military or policy problem and the bill clinton who was critical now says he

thinks that they're trending in the right direction or do you think i think that sounds more like damage control or rolling back comments made that drew it drew a divide between president clinton and president obama i don't really know if president clinton actually has changed where he stands maybe he got some new information as well but that to me looks like a former president a vocal former president former president with foreign policy experience getting out ahead of the guy actually in the white house and then maybe walking back some of his comments and not overstepping where president obama is currently at mark do you see any danger of those the words correct of american troops on the scene. i don't see any possibility of american troops on the scene i don't think the american people have an appetite for american boots on the ground anymore not in light of iraq not in light of afghanistan not even in light of libya and the

message that became the american people don't want to see that but it seems to me that there are strategic options that make sense we have already sort of unable proxy wars with weapons that come through bought a man other places it's possible to more directly engage the rebels and that's what john mccain suggested in just because john mccain says it doesn't mean it's wrong and you know if you're a democrat it might be time to actually say look boots on the ground are the best way to go but ultimately coming up with a solution here which initially is a no fly zone will ultimately might mean a two state solution in my ultimate i mean not a north-south situation but an east west situation in syria where the islamic minority can be protected where. a community can be protected but at the very same time we get peace and we get into this bloodshed but as far as american boots go going to happen read why why i think europe has fallen out of love with the president i think it's a i think this is what happens in second terms i don't just think it's europe this fall in love with the president i think every second term president suffers from

fatigue internally and all and also from public fatigue. but i think if you look at europe there's a lot of conflicts of interest right our interests are fundamentally not aligned with europe and then within europe the interests are not fundamentally aligned and that makes for a very delicate and difficult political situation so i don't know that i think people were a little too quick to point out this misstep or this misstep i think at the end of the day present the united states has to constantly do what's in the best interest of the united states while balancing what's politically sustainable and viable and then europe has to be a little bit of an afterthought and i think that's the difficult part of the position for any president the n.s.a. controversy and other things more with our own when we talk about.

here's mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot like you sold art school you know what that is my self you don't want to receive the feature isn't the only liberal that chris. can securely slip out of the. you know the corporate media distracts us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break this that it's.

illegal. is it possible to navigate the economy with all the details of his diction misinformation and media hype keep you up to date by decoding the mainstream states and if in your mind. illegal. illegal. you know we're back with read dickens marc lamont hill and andy crawley's in los angeles mark is in new york and andy is in washington i will start with read this go around edward snowden hero a traitor i think is a coward. he didn't disclose anything that was not commonly known.

everything he disclosed the congress had full knowledge of as legal so i think at the end of what he did not get into quoting the few good men but what he did cost lives and i think what he did put us in danger and. discloses sources and methods and operations and it doesn't it actually causes a debate that i think that constantly going on it's a healthy debate the reason you have congressional oversight is for situations like this i think he took it upon himself to try to make himself a hero and i do not think he is a hero and what do you think larry i want to pick a third option if i can which would be an enigma and i have been reporting on edward snowden and his history how he got to where he did how he got classified information how he got a job at the cia and frankly there are still even with reports in the washington

post even with the guardian's own report the guardian who had direct access to snowden as opposed there are still big holes in his biography in how he got to where he did how he got these documents and so for me you know you know more than a week into this whole debate this whole discussion that reported out we still don't know that much about the guy and we and there are still big questions and so i'll go with the next third option if you don't mind what mark what is your answer to the bill of security versus privacy you know i don't think that they're competing claims i think that we have to establish a state that is safe for the american people we need to establish a state that takes into consideration twenty first century delimit around security around access to a new media to completely digitized world we need to make sure the american people are protected protection means protecting privacy rights and for taking the state and somehow we're getting convinced that we have to choose between those two things

and that's just not the case that there are moments where we have to make tough decisions or we have to say. that the american people may for example need to need to submit to metta level concessions of data for example what happened with the rise and where where the american people support will rather where the government says look we need metal level data mining so we can keep track of some of some very particular concerns i'm not against that what i'm against is a lack of transparency the i think the american people would give in and say look we're willing to yield a little bit of privacy as long as we know where you are doing it is always a transparent process knows that it's it's open and it's a limited scope and that a court is involved or not and that some kangaroo files a court but a real court makes it clear what the warrant is for that it's a direct threat and there's not some general level of access to all the american people's business i mean that's the key here i don't get to choose between those two things and that's what makes known interesting again i agree he's not a hero or that he's a traitor i think he's a narcissist who gave us the information we already had but may have awoken the american people up to remind them that

a security state is not what we want it's not what we need and it's not what america's about touch some other bases read dickens where do you think the i.r.s. controversy is going to wind up. this i think this is not i don't think this is a scandal first of all i think it's a distraction for president obama i think the real story here is when you focus in really closely on any government agency you see a lot of ugly things and i think you know when the when they find their receipts for four million dollars worth of charges i mean that obviously makes all of us who have to keep our receipts from let's roll our eyes a little bit but i think the only the only one that affects from this photo scandal is that it's been very distracting to the administration are you surprised that the that the recent gallup poll says only ten percent of americans say they trust congress a great deal. not at all surprised that congress' approval ratings at the trust in government is so low and when you see take the i.r.s. scandal what that are or non scandal if you will what that whole story has devolved

into is just more bickering between. say congressman darrell issa and congressman elijah cummings on capitol hill you know about releasing excerpts of interviews about blaming this agency about blaming the white house you just see it time and time again potentially important issues maybe not with the i.r.s. but maybe with the d.o.j. phone records for reporters or any of these scandals or photo scandals they just do they just turn into arguments on capitol hill and congressman beating their chests and and posturing and not listening to the other side it's hardly surprising i want to know who the ten percent of people are who do you think congress is doing to. reach senator rubio says that the comprehensive immigration reform bill is almost ready to go i use surprised you happy but your overview of that well i think there will be a bill passed but i think comprehensive is the key word i think that by the time a bill passes it will be anything but comprehensive congress is not in the business

of comprehensive reform and i think the founding fathers would be shocked to see career politicians that don't have real jobs i think comprehensive reform is not something they're capable of i do think we'll get a bill i do think you'll probably have a pathway to citizenship i mean from the program and will in world war two all the way to this pathway the pathway to citizenship we've been struggling struggling with these same basic issues this is not that different of a bill that president bush and senator mccain and hillary clinton were going for in two thousand and five so if they do get a bill passed that say congratulations guys it took seven years reid is your republican party why are they so intransigent. at least that large element of the party i think it's partly a flaw this is partly it's just intellectually dishonest and inconsistent is just a point it's disappointing to me because a lot of arguments are being made just to stoke fear but on the other hand it's a flaw of the system because everyone that's involved in the debate has to get

reelected and if you look at the county by county red versus blue county by county map you'll see. very red country and i think a lot of it is people are a slave to their districts and that's unfortunate on the other hand though. democratic senator robert menendez says the republicans don't go for this pathway to citizenship they'll never get back the white house has done demographics. business is the demographic argument you hear other democrats saying that they'll be able to win back the state of texas if if republicans don't really face that reality and see to the demographics of this country are changing and texas a solid red state could become a blue one thanks to the exploding hispanic population i think that there is a bit of hyperbole on both sides that that the republicans will never win the white house again or the democrats will make texas blue again i think there's a bit of hyperbole but somewhere in between those two extremes there is the reality that the demographics of this country are changing and that it does matter to the

burgeoning hispanic population in the u.s. where the members of the house members of the senate stand on issues and immigration issues is a very real issue that hits home for those people moggies surprised that a seventy two decision the supreme court strikes the hours on a law requiring people to submit proof of citizenship when they register to vote. i am not surprised actually i think this was pretty cut and dried i think what would be surprising to me is if there were no political fallout from this where people claim that the supreme court has somehow you know mobilize a political interest in the advantage of a particular party i think you'll see people it is an anti immigration sentiment here in this country there's an answer and i particularly in particular hispanic sentiment in this country and i think when you see the fallout from this you'll see what you'll see is a bunch of bunch of people saying that bureaucracy and technicalities are preventing us from for trolling our borders from securing elections and all those other hyperbolic stuff that happens every time there's

a conversation about citizenship immigration and voting. at the end of the day though this was the right thing this is the right path and i would add one more thing the devil is in the details not just on this supreme court decision but also in the broader immigration conversation yes we have comprehensive reform yes we have powerful decisions handed down by the supreme court but the end of the day we need to qualify our language to make sure that we don't just allow people in the country but that we allow everybody equal access and possibility if we leave gay lesbian fall out because we have too many provisions in the bill or not enough provisions in the bill we fail if we don't if we have border security as the kind of linchpin of all of all of the decisions in all other actions that what happens is we always had these nebulous thing that we can appeal to whenever we don't want to we don't want to let people in when we don't want to provide a living wage when we don't want to demilitarize the border so we need to have a really rich interesting conversation with immigration and quite frankly i don't think congress has the stomach or the brain for. you did not support i know his

election or his reelection how do you feel about president obama the legacy and the fact that his. popularity is down to forty three percent but i think his polling numbers i think you're seeing like i said earlier what you see with every second term president let me say this about president obama he has the toughest job in washington and one of the only real jobs in politics and it's a very tough issue and what i would say is let's go back to this issue this is the same program that's been in place for clinton bush forty three and obama and when candidate obama was criticizing not criticizing kicking president bush's teeth and over all these issues i said on your show in two thousand and eight that when he becomes the president and i said that while he was still running that hillary clinton he would have a different view and sure enough he became president he got cia briefings he put his big boy underwear on and then he said just last week he said you know i have now real value at all this and seeing that it actually saves lives we're just

constantly reevaluating than to make sure that we protect our values while they save lives. and i have to commend him on that i think he's done a really good job on these very sensitive issues of trying to make decisions in spite of what he says as a set as a candidate and i think that's a testament to the oval office the presidency is a really tough job market we can't get into someone's head when everyone's talking about it do you think hillary clinton will run. i have absolutely no doubt the hillary clinton will run all of the signs seem no doubt all the signs seem to point to a for me from bill clinton sort of slipping in a pub very public place that hillary got a clean bill of health a few months ago so the way she's sort of lining her ducks up right now i hear rumblings that she's already beginning to contact people and hoping to get some of the micro-targeting data experts who will win in twenty twelve trying to get them on board i mean it seems to me that she's in the right place she's done the right thing she's taking time off at the right time she's been guys he will die down at full controversy i think she'll be good the only question is is joe biden willing

to step aside and not make president obama an american people have to make a tough decision although at the end of the day with hillary wins regard do you think any democrat would challenge or in primaries i think the bigger issue is that they should not no matter what some may have thought about hillary clinton in the past right now she is someone who's been advised her to a president for eight years a u.s. senator secretary of state during two wars i think she's incredibly savvy as a politician and insanely competent as a terms of her office that she's held i don't think if i were a democrat i don't think it would be too tough but this is in the choose between hillary clinton and joe biden we run out of time we'll have you all back again thanks so much thanks to my guests reed dickens marc lamont hill and andy kroll what do you think of how the obama administration is handling the conflict in syria . thing join the conversation on my facebook or review of books at king's things using the hashtag politic see you next time.

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this vehicle was picked because usually old policemen undergo control there are police officers that are connected to illegal to video. chat rooms. what if there might be traces or someone might have taken drugs so there was a smell left over a lot of buts we have to investigate the many possibility that he might be carrying drugs.