let's take a wider look at this with philip mudd.he situation in syria, phil, seems like it's becoming more and more complicated. does it seem that way to you? >> it sure does. boy, in my career, you've got to have mission focus when you're dealing with complexity like this. for example, if you're dealing with a situation like somalia, point targets using drones against terrorist leadership. when you want a regime change, major military engagement. let's shift to syria where we are telling our allies we want you to fight isis but we don't share your goals of fighting assad. we're telling the syrian people, we don't like assad but we're going to kill some of the militants who want to oust assad. i don't think the current situation is going to stand forever. >> so there doesn't seem to be at this point, at least publicly clarified a simple and specific mission certainly in syria. >> i think there's the beginning of a simple focus and that is, let's take out the elements of isis, the elements of al qaeda khorasan group who are directly

joining me now is philip mudd.ems -- the situation in syria, phil, it seems like it is becoming more and more complicated. does it seem that way to you? >> it sure does. in my career, you got to have mission focus when you're dealing with complexity like this. for example, if you're dealing in a situation like somalia, very limited engagement, point targets using drones against terrorist leadership. when you want a regime change in places like iraq and afghanistan, major military engagement. but let's shift to syria. we're telling our allies we kind of want you to fight isis, but we don't share your goal of fighting assad. we're telling the syrian people, we don't like assad, but we're going to kill some of the militants, even though they might be terrorists in our eyes, who want to oust assad. at some point you got to step back and say exactly what are we up to in syria because i don't think the current situation is going to stand forever. >> there doesn't seem to be at this point, at least publicly clarified, a s

the last thing i want do is get you wrong, philip mudd, that's for sure. president to the religious leader of iran has ruffled a lot of feathers, in washington and beyond. they're supposed to be the bad guys and now you're asking them for help? help us make sense of it. >> look, washington is not reality city. those guys, one reason i moved away from that city, they don't live in the real world. this is like being put in a cell with an arsonist saying i'm not going to talk to the dude because he's a convicted felon. tomorrow he burns the house down. iran has tremendous influence in iraq. they've been involved in fighting american soldiers there, they place explosive devices to kill american soldiers, they're not with us all the time, they've been involved in supporting shia militias in iraq. we don't like that but the bottom line is, they share a huge border with iraq, and a common enemy. we don't have to like them but i think we have to accept reality, if we have a common enemy and try to extract iran from the picture they're going to bite us so it's eith