joshua landis is the director of the university of oklahoma center for middle east studies.hrough this because everybody has heard so much about syria. let's start with the map of what syria looks like right now, and explain to us what those colors mean. >> the colors are that the government led by bashar al assad in damascus in the south rules over this purplish color in the south. the isis, this new big state that has formed, dominates the east and the north -- >> a lot of that is just desert, radio snit. >> much of that is desert, it's not the big populated areas. you have the blue which also has rebel activity. there are over 1,000 militias in syria according to the cia. >> so let's understand why you think that the solution that so many people keep pushing, which is that the united states supports those rebels in the blue areas and that they will, therefore, win, they will establish control, create perhaps a democratic syria, why is that not going to work? >> it's not going to work because most of the blue area are dominated by the big rebel groups which are al qaeda an

. >> woodruff: the same question to you, joshua landis, first of all, how significant do you see this development that al-nusra is gaining in parts of syria that the u.s. considers strategic? >> it underlines how difficult the u.s. is going to find trying to find partners in syria all together. our partners are not popular in syria. today, the broad sentiments amongst sunni arabs who support the rebellion is that the the united states is trying to find hired hands, and most syrians don't like them. we're bombing nusra-- this is the al qaeda groups-- and we've killed a number of people with the islamic front who are applied lyde with them, a very popular, broadbased group. in the general sentiment, i think so, amongst the rebels is to turning against the united states, believe the united states is helping assad, and this is going to make life very difficult in trying to produce a syrian army that's going to have any effect on the real balance of power on the ground. and we've only spent-- we've only earmarked half a billion dollars. that's about a third of the endowment of the universi