to move around, plan and plot to conduct attacks, gain financing, gain recruits, all of it posing very significant new dangers. >> barbara starr, thank you. confronting al qaeda is just one of the foreign policy challenges for the obama administration in the year ahead. let's bring in cnn foreign affairs reporter elise labatt as well as molly lasser from the johns hopkins school of international advanced studies. we were talking with barbara about warren weinstein, who is being held in pakistan. the u.s. doesn't negotiate with terrorists, doesn't negotiate with al qaeda. what are the options for freeing him? >> well, they don't look good. as you said, they don't negotiate with al qaeda or any terrorist groups because then that looks like if they're open for bargaining, that will just encourage more groups to kidnap americans and in fact, that's what zawahiri, the leader, said after they kidnapped weinstein. you have to know this guy works for a private company, a private contractor. if the terrorists were looking for money, it would make it a lot easier, a lot of times in these cases, the company will try and negotiate o