david lesch.r of two books on the assad family and he has met multiple times with bashar al assad. professor, nice to see you. welcome. >> thank you. >> if you could guess, sir, do you think bashar al assad is celebrating today? or breathing a sigh of relief that the u.s. has put off action against him? >> i think he's sighing a little breath of relief. but i think overall they've already made the calculation that anything the u.s. would do in terms of a strike, whether now or later, wasn't going to change dramatically the scope of things on the battlefield. i think they've already made the determination that the united states, the obama administration, is not out to affect regime change as the obama administration has said right up front. and numerous times the syrian regime, obviously, has come up against or exceeded these so-called red lines. and so i think they feel fairly certain that below a certain level of force, that they can do what they want in terms of -- in terms of taking action agai