let me go to peter beinart. i can never figure out peter because i think you're somewhere awround the middle line politically. i've been reading zwrufr and i think you're pessimistic about mr. putin's ability to be the middle man here and to get assad to stop using chemical -- in fact to turn them over. >> if the question is him not using chemical weapons again, i think you make a good point, chris. i think at this point that's pretty unlikely. but if the question is him giving them over, first of all, the logistics are just overwhelming. even if assad and putin really did want this. i mean, remember how much trouble we had with this in iraq? and there wasn't a civil war going on. the pentagon estimated you'd need 75,000 troops to protect the inspectors who were trying to walk around in the -- >> how critical is it that we collect all these weapons if they're not going to be used? >> i think this whole thing is a complete red herring. what matters is not how the people of syria are killed. it is the fact they ar

and peter beinart is editor of the blog open design. two new polls today. in a pew poll, just 29% favored them. nearly 60% oppose missile strikes while just 36% supported them. and the opposition is bipartisan. take a look. a majority of democrats, 54% oppose military action. the number is almost exactly the same among republicans. 55% oppose. the numbers among independents even starker here. two-thirds of them, by 2-1, they oppose any strike against syria. i want to start with howard fineman with my big question here. why should the united states in its individual votes come up with 60 senators and 218 house members, why would there be enough votes to do either in either body, supporting a war that nobody in this country seems overwhelm leg enthusiastic about? >> well, i'm not sure i have a good answer for that, chris. i spoke yesterday to senator -- to a couple senators who were on their way back from recess, democrats. and i said what do you think? and they said, well, we're really not excited about this. we want to know more details. i was impressed by

joining us to discuss the continuing negotiations is peter beinart, senior writer at "the daily beastond day of meetings between secretary kerry and foreign minister lavrov. what do you think people should take away from these meetings so far? >> i think unfortunately the chances of success are very low, even if the russians and bashar assad really wanted to give up all of their chemical weapons, there's a civil war going on in syria. the pentagon has estimated it would take 75,000 troops to secure the inspectors who would have to go from rebel to government-held areas to try to get these chemical weapons and there's no real incentive for bashar assad to want to get rid of those weapons once the threat of u.s. military force recedes. >> and the challenges are immense, there's no question about that. secretary kerry said early the threat of u.s.ily m military ac remains on the table. is asad said they'll only agree to the proposal if the military threat is off the table. if you can't get beyond that point where do you go from there? >> once the threat is off the table the syrian incent

let's bring in peter beinart, senior political writer for the daily beast. let's lay this out there. how possible is it that syria will turn over their chemical weapons or surrender to monitoring and russia would broker this deal? what are we talking about in terms of the real realm of possibility? >> the more you examine it on the ground, it seems the harder it would actually be. you'd need to have international inspectors all over that country in a state of civil war in order to try to secure those weapons. >> they'd have to invite people in, which heretofore, they have not done effectively. >> right. you'd have to have them go across the country, even though the country is now in a case of civil war and you'd have to assume that bashar al assad will continue to do this once the threat of military force has been lifted. can you maintain the threat of force in order to continue to get him to go down this road? most likely you would be in a situation where the threat of force dissipated. >> that's one-third of the equation. that's the syria, what will they d