professor, sec tate, john kerry, said that there's very little doubt that the syrian government had gassed it's own citizens, and if that's the case, what are we going to see from the west? >> well, that's certainly hard to know. certainly making that determination that the syrian government used chemical weapons makes an armed intervention more likely. but i should note that the u.n. team that's going to inspect the site of the attack is not empowered or mandated to determine who carried out the attack. so the syrian government and it's allies will likely continue to claim that the attack was carried out by rebels. so there's not going to be the crystal clarity that secretary kerry hopes for. >> you mentioned, professor, that the scope is not affected. but on a broader note, given the violence that's rocking the countries, do a you feel that the u.s. influence is declining now in the middle east? >> well, that's a really tough question. to go back to your first question, is u.s. intervention likely? it causes me to think about the last time that the u.s. intervened to change an arab regim