elliott abrams was the deputy national security advisor for president george w. bush.ves in d.c. and in beirut romney runs the international affairs program at the american university bay. let me begin with you. how would you describe what is going on in syria because it appears to be more than just a few protests. there seems to be a kind of insippent civil war. >> well, i think syria has already descended into a prolonged conflict. political violence has gone to many parts of syria. many syrians, i have just returned from many syrians are arming themselves. the syrian government appears to be losing control of is some neighborhoods and some streets and even towns. you have now a potent arnled ininsurgency. the last week or so knee launched an all-out offensive to crush the ininsurgency. the security council has been neutralized as a result of the double veto. the syrian crisis has been caught in the unfolding cold war between the saudi-led alliance and the iranian coalition. this is a very, very prolonged conflict. even though i don't see how assad can survive from t

i worked with them, and elliott abrams at state and the contra campaign and the rest of it. what happened at the end of the cold war is we divided philosophically. some of us believed in americans that had to fight the cold war. it was delayer claired on us by stalin and the empire. they killed all the pro western people in russia and china and they were on the march. then when the soviet union -- soviet empire collapsed, soviet union collapsed and the wall came down and the red army went home and communist china is moving towards state capitalism, we said, our war is over. the cold war is over. bring the troops home. give the europeans nato. get out of all these bases and things because we've been -- we had to pay an enormous amount, americans did. but the neocons basically move to the world democratic refr lugs sort of policy you saw george bush with. then they went for the war in iraq. they went for the war on serbia. they wanted to nation-build in afghanistan, and the older right, the older conservatives split. some of them went with the neocons and some said this is wil