 You are part of this iconic picture in the situation room with President Obama, Vice President Biden, Hillary Clinton, at the very moment that Navy Seals terminate Osama bin Laden. Yet, not much later, or at the time there was the Syria crisis, ISIS and the government, President Obama then decided basically not to do anything. While at this moment more and more people have the idea that ISIS is even a greater threat to the world of freedom, then al-Qaeda, definitely at the time that bin Laden was terminated. Why? What happened? Well, it's a long answer but I'll try to make it short. First, you have to distinguish between the fight against Daesh or the Islamic State, whatever you want to call it, and the civil war that's now ripping Syria apart and has been for the last six years. The fight against the Islamic State is actually going well based on the strategy that was implemented, conceived and implemented by the Obama administration, and that is trying to destroy Daesh at its core in Iraq and Syria to take away the physical caliphate that it's tried to declare, which has been a place that then physically attracts foreign fighters, allows it to exploit resources, and then in a less literal sense figuratively gives it a story, a narrative that's very attractive. We're on the verge of taking away that self-declared caliphate in Mosul and also in Raqqa in Syria, and then you still have to deal with its manifestations in different parts of the world, the fact that it inspires individuals, but I think we're on a positive course in terms of dealing with that problem. The same cannot be said for the civil war in Syria, and of course the two are connected, because as long as Assad remains in power and as long as Syria remains torn apart, it will be a place where there's a vacuum and it will be a place that attracts extremists, so they'll continue to some extent to fuel Daesh. Anyone who had any responsibility for a policy, myself included, with regard to Syria, has to accept the reality that we did not succeed and that on our watch many, many, many people suffered, and that's something that we'll have to contend with for those of us who are involved for the rest of our lives. I think there's plenty of blame to go around, starting with the Syrians themselves, starting with Iran and Russia and the other patrons of the regime, starting with all of the Arab states and other neighboring states, but we have a responsibility too as a country that more than any other in the world has some ability to mobilize the international community to deal with these problems. I think there are lots of reasons that one could give for why we have to date not been successful. Certainly the overhang of the Iraq war weighed heavily in a desire not to have American forces bog down in a country hundreds of thousands, four years at a time. The difficult intervention in Libya, which succeeded in getting rid of Qaddafi, but did not succeed in avoiding a vacuum after Qaddafi's departure, that's actually proved to be unfortunately a place for extremists and terrorists to go to, that too weighs on it. But the bottom line is that when you look at the history of civil wars, they tend to end in one of three ways. First, one side wins, but in the case of Syria that's not happened because whenever one side has gotten the advantage, the patrons from the outside of the other side have come in and supported it and it's rebalanced things to some extent. Second, the parties fight to exhaustion, but at least according to historical studies, that takes 10 years on average when there are just two parties involved and many more years when there are multiplicity of parties involved. Syria is just entering its seventh year. So that suggests that exhaustion may not be around the corner. The third way is some kind of outside intervention, some combination of military, political, diplomatic intervention. That's what we've been trying to do, trying to get everyone on the same page among the outside patrons to try to bring this to an end by using their influence with actors inside of Syria. But the interests are so dispersed and so different among the different actors inside and outside of Syria that that's proved to be a very challenging process. That's where we are. It is not satisfying in the least to the contrary. It's usually frustrating and it's something that weighs on anyone who had any responsibility for Syria. I hope that the Trump administration can now use its best efforts to try to continue this process and bring the civil war to an end.