. >> thank you, mr. gelb. let me check with the staff. starting right now, it will likely be a 15-minute vote. let me just -- i want to ask a couple questions, and some of us will depart. we will leave the record open for questions by committee members until 5:00 tomorrow for these valuable witnesses. the statement that ambassador ford made earlier was that at the current time, neither side has the ability to deliver a knock-out punch to the other. is that an opinion -- i'd like each of your opinions about that statement. >> senator, i think ambassador ford was exactly correct. at this point -- at this point, you don't even have -- you don't even have a civil war in the sense of much going on in terms of units firing and maneuvering. this so-called civil war looks nothing like, pardon the expression of grant marching on richmond, senator -- >> a little sensitive where i come from. >> what we are really seeing, the primary aspect of the so-called combat is regime stand-off weaponry, artillery, aircraft, rockets, missiles pounding residenti

. >> thank you, mr. gelb. let me check with the staff.arting right now, it will likely be a 15-minute vote. let me just -- i want to ask a couple questions, and some of us will depart. we will leave the record open for questions by committee members until 5:00 tomorrow for these valuable witnesses. the statement that ambassador ford made earlier was that at the current time, neither side has the ability to deliver a knock-out punch to the other. is that an opinion -- i'd like each of your opinions about that statement. >> senator, i think ambassador ford was exactly correct. at this point -- at this point, you don't even have -- you don't even have a civil war in the sense of much going on in terms of units firing and maneuvering. this so-called civil war looks nothing like, pardon the expression of grant marching on richmond, senator -- >> a little sensitive where i come from. >> what

. >> and mr. gelb, you raise a -- the idea you put on the table about an organizing principle in syria is intriguing. what would that idea -- extend that idea to how we should be positioning -- if that was our goal, how should we be positioning our efforts with respect to the restart of syria's geneva discussions? >> i don't think there's going to be a serious restart of the geneva negotiations. >> so you really assume that -- this is a strategy that assumes the geneva discussions at best will be superficial and kind of window dressing but not substantive. >> i do, and i think you've got to begin to portray for both the sunni moderates we want to support and for the alawites who we can't allow to be killed, they'd be slaughtered too. a kind of solution for them, which i think ought to take place along power-sharing lines, a federal system. then-senator joe biden and i, some of you will remember, proposed a federal system for iraq as the only way to prevent eventual slaughter there. you have to let each