 Welcome everyone. Welcome to New America. I'm Leila Halal, the director of the Middle East Task Force and we have a great lineup today to discuss Syria prospects for Geneva II and beyond. Big thanks to our co-sponsor at the University of Denver Center for Middle East Studies. We have with us from Denver professors Danny Postol and Nader Hashemi. Dr. Nader is with us on stage. They are the co-editors of the Syria Dilemma, a compilation of commentary by leading political analysts and Syrian activist thinkers. The book is available for purchase and signing after the talk concludes. For those of you who follow Syria, you've no doubt been witness to what has been recently an endless stream of details about shifting frontlines between warring factions on the ground and continued regime terror on the civilian population. The number of dead, detained, abducted, maimed, displaced and abused continues to rise and against this backdrop, officials are readying themselves for the first international peace conference, which will bring together the Syrian government and opposition figures. The conference will be convened in Switzerland on January 22nd, ostensibly for purposes of reaching an agreement on a transitional authority to lead Syria from conflict to peace. Again, for those of you who are familiar with Syria, no one needs to be convinced of the huge challenges presented and faced by peacemakers. I suppose we have yet even to perhaps define who the peacemakers are in the Syrian situation. There is wide skepticism about the chances of seeking a workable just grand bargain for Syria emerging from January's meetings. But with so much stake for the people of Syria, the Middle East region and the wider world, I think that we cannot afford to respond to this diplomatic initiative with dismissive cynicism. And we must instead ask and seek answers to hard questions, which have yet to be answered for Syria. If it is true that the only solution for Syria is political, when will the conflict be ripe for political settlement? Who are the vital parties and interest groups to the settlement? Will they be present with what consequences? Will the process address the grievances that provoked the uprising? Is a bit more humanitarian relief, so-called confidence-building measures, the best we can and should hope for from Geneva? What about international monitors? Given the challenges, how can we turn Geneva meetings into an opportunity? What complementary tracks, policies and interventions are needed to see these opportunities through into tangible results on the ground, if not this month, then in the future? And how, most importantly, can we convince the Syrian people that their desires to see an end of suffering and to return home without capitulation are truly at the heart of the process? Our distinguished panelists will start a discussion on these and other questions with five-minute intros to set the scene before we debate amongst ourselves. We will then open it up for Q&A with the audience. I will give brief introductions. There are longer bios available on the seats and outside of the room. So we have Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter to my far right, President and CEO of New America and Professor Amarada at Princeton University. Dr. Slaughter is former Dean of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and former Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State under Secretary Clinton. Dr. Najib Rabouin, Special Representative to the United States for the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces. Jeremy Shapiro, Visiting Fellow at Brookings and a former member of the Office of Policy Planning at State where he advised on North Africa and the Levant. And Dr. Nader Hashemi, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the University of Denver. Professor Hashemi, please. Well thank you all for coming. We have been debating Syria in this country for almost three years. I think that debate really culminated last September after the chemical weapons attack on the suburbs of Damascus. And many people argued against intervention. Many people thought that Syria really didn't matter. Much of this had to do with the legacy of the Iraq war. But those people who argued against intervention now I think have to deal with the consequences of their actions and what is unfolding in Syria. And the consequences of what has unfolded in Syria I think as a result of non-intervention generally I would say failed U.S. policy or the following. Syria has become the great moral tragedy of this century. A disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history. Those are not my words but the words of Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, spoken about four months ago. And I concur with his assessment. Syria today does represent the largest humanitarian and moral catastrophe of the 21st century and the facts and the figures speak for themselves. Examples of Syria have now surpassed those of Bosnia. Conservative estimates suggest that over 110,000 people have been killed over the past two and a half years. 40% of Syria's population are now either internally displaced or turned into refugees. Last month the United Nations reported that 75% of Syria's 23 million population will be in need of humanitarian aid to survive over the coming year. About 300,000 people according to a statement put out just yesterday by Human Rights Watch are living in besieged areas with a little or no aid. And now there were reported deaths of starvation and malnutrition in areas just 10 miles south of Damascus. Diseases including those easily preventable by basic hygiene and vaccine are spreading at an alarming rate such as polio. Last month the Oxford Research Group released a report saying that 11,000 children have been killed in Syria. Many of them deliberately tortured and executed. Just last week it was reported that 38,000 people appealed to the United Nations in 2013 for help after facing sexual assault or gender-based violence in Syria. A figure that the UN says represents, quote, the tip of the iceberg after nearly three years of conflict. And I think summarizing the moral and political catastrophe that Syria has become, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has observed after nearly two years. We no longer count days and hours, but in bodies another 100, 200, 300 dead fighting rages, sectarian hatred on the rise. The catalogue of war crimes is increasing. All of this has been copiously documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN Special Commissioner of Inquiry. All of them have charged the Assad regime in its inner circle with state-sanctioned war crimes and crimes against humanity. And they've repeatedly appealed to the international community to refer Assad to the international criminal court. After the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement last month saying that there is, quote, massive evidence of Assad's complicity in these war crimes, the Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister responded to that statement by saying, quote, Navi Pele, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, she has been talking nonsense for a long time and we don't listen to her anymore, end, quote. So these are some of the few moral and ethical stakes that have flowed from non-intervention from a failed policy, but there's also important political and geostrategic consequences of non-intervention in Syria that we have to deal with. Assad has grown stronger over the last six months. The moderate democratic opposition has grown weaker. Large parts of the rebel areas are now controlled by extremist Islamist militias. Erdogan wrote a piece just last week where he noted that al-Qaeda now controls territory in the Middle East spanning the Syrian-Iraq border that stretches more than 400 miles across the Middle East. Iraq has become destabilized, Lebanon has become destabilized, Jordan is being destabilized, sectarianism is reaching new heights across the Middle East, and much of this flows from the ongoing conflict in Syria, Iran has been strengthened, Russia has been strengthened. And the other consequence, just reading the press, is now Syria is turning into another Afghanistan. There are reports that there are 1,200 young Muslim radicals that have left Europe and have joined these extremist militias, many of them affiliated with ISIS and other radical Islamist movements, and so now there's a big security problem that is emerging from the ongoing and unresolved conflict in Syria. And we can debate what should have been done. My position on Syria is very similar, I think to the one that Anne-Marie Slaughter has articulated in the book that's on sale outside, but I think what we need to talk about now is what should be done today moving forward. I think the best opinion, the best intervention I've seen recently was a piece that was ignored because it was published a few days before Christmas by Jimmy Carter and Robert Pastor in the Washington Post. And he proposed three core principles that should form the basis of any future diplomatic and political conversation that can resolve or should resolve the Syrian conflict. Number one, principle of self-determination. He said, Jimmy Carter in his op-ed piece, the Syrian people should decide the country's future government in a free election process under unrestricted supervision by the international community and responsible non-governmental organizations, and those results should be accepted by all parties if the process is judged to be free and fair. Second principle, respect. The victor should guarantee and respect all sectarian and minority rights. And finally, there has to be a peacekeeping element, a plan for reconstruction and peacekeeping to assure that the results of those elections are respected and implemented. And any local, regional and global actors that accept these three preconditions should be invited to Geneva to participate in the negotiations. I think that provides a basic framework for how we should move forward, but of course none of this can happen until there is a shift in policy here in the United States, here in Washington. My own view is that, you know, this Syria represents for the Obama administration the same challenge that Clinton faced with respect to Bosnia. It was a similar type of conflict. There was no arguments were made that there were no sort of important strategic political interests involved in solving that conflict. But that conflict after three years, spinning out of control, finally forced the Clinton administration at that time to get involved and to try and solve a conflict that was of course much more difficult to resolve three years after the fact than it was had there been an intervention much earlier. And so I think there are lessons to be learned here from the Clinton administration and the challenges that Bosnia posed for the United States 20 years ago. I'll leave it at that. Thank you. To Geneva, too. Sure. I'll try. I like the way that you said that we should not approach it with dismissive cynicism, so I'm going to try to approach it with non-dismissive cynicism and to try to sort of talk about what we can really hope to get out of Geneva, too. I think that we all and the world community in general has been accepting of the notion that this is a tragedy, a tremendous humanitarian and moral tragedy as you outlined, and that there are of course all sorts of geopolitical interests at stake. I don't think there's a lot of argument over that, but there is a great deal of argument over what we can and should do about it. And so I think what it makes sense for us to do particularly here is to think about how we can use what we have. And actually one of the interesting things that we have is this Geneva II process that's going to meet next week. And if you read the press on this, and I don't recommend that you do, it's pretty depressing. I think that in general hope is not very high for this process. I think it's hard to dispute, and I imagine most of my fellow panelists will agree that there's not likely to be any major results or any sort of agreement from this meeting. And it's clear really that neither the regime nor the opposition is really in any mood to compromise. And it's also not even clear that they could if they wanted to in terms of the representatives at this meeting really could compromise if they wanted to. And meanwhile it's also I think clear that the external sponsors of the various sides are willing and indeed desirous of continuing to support, to arm, to fund their various proxies without really pushing them toward the types of compromises that would be necessary for an agreement at Geneva II. So what's the point of this meeting? I think it's, we have often acknowledged in the United States and elsewhere and both sides have frankly acknowledged that there is no military solution to the Syrian problem that we need, a diplomatic solution that's the corollary. And that's important if we want to stop the suffering and stop the war and end the suffering of the Syrian people that Dr. Hashemi described. And I think that Geneva right now isn't the best in effect actually the only diplomatic track that we have. So we need to make the best of it because frankly the alternatives are far worse. I think we can have two fundamental goals at Geneva which won't end the Syrian civil war but can move us in the right direction. The first is that we can invest Russia in solving the problem with the United States. This isn't about convincing Russia to ditch the Assad regime. It's about putting Russian prestige into the process of reaching a settlement in Syria. One should certainly be skeptical about Russian motives and commitments on Syria. I guess this is where I get into my nondismissive cynicism. But Russia has a genuine desire to end the war and they want to end the war not because they have a deep-seated belief in peace and democracy in the Middle East. They want to end the war because it threatens their interest, the instability there and the extremism there threatens their interests. So in that sense Russia can be counted on. That's a good place to have Russia. I think that the second goal beyond investing Russia in the process is to move, is for the United States to move with Russia to a regional track of diplomacy. This is what I've called in some of my writings the Geneva 1.5. It's a sort of clever way of saying, or maybe not so clever way of saying, that's a half step back from the Geneva II process that we're doing. When I look at the Syrian Civil War right now I see sort of three circles of diplomacy if you will. There's the sort of global circle which is fundamentally the US and Russia but also the UN. There's the middle circle which is the regional players principally Iran, Saudi Arabia but also Turkey, Qatar, Iraq and the other regional countries. And then the internal struggle the Syrian opposition groups and the regime. What we can achieve at Geneva II is to make some progress on that outer circle. I think that all of these diplomatic circles are very difficult but they get more difficult as we move in. The global is the easiest, the regional is harder and the internal is the hardest of all. We can make progress in Geneva II at the global and that's by investing Russia in the process. And then I think we need to move with them into that middle circle. I think unfortunately for now, and this is sort of the conceit of Geneva II which is premised on working on this inner circle immediately, is that the inner circle is essentially hopeless because of the regional disputes, the middle circle. The Syrian Civil War has quite simply become a proxy war principally between Saudi Arabia and Iran but with important roles played by Qatar, by Turkey, by Iraq and frankly by the United States and Russia as well. And the record on resolving such proxy civil wars, the historical record is very, very clear until the main external supporters reach some sort of accommodation. They will continue to fund, to arm and to otherwise support their proxies and give them hopes of victory. External military intervention in a circumstance like that simply creates a response from the other side and an escalation from other supporters. This played out very, very frequently during the Cold War and created civil wars that lasted decades in places like Angola, Guatemala and Vietnam. And frankly it's the story if you look at it the right way in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. So that's why I mean my co-author proposed a Geneva 1.5 regional track. And the purpose of this would be to facilitate eventual political resolution within Syria by cutting off the activity of the regional actors that are currently fueling the conflict. Obviously these negotiations are not going to be easy. The Syrian civil war is really only one battlefield on a much larger, broader struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia. But I do think that these negotiations are easier than the Geneva 2 negotiations between the internal parties. And maybe more importantly they're a necessary precondition to any sort of effective agreement among the Syrian parties. It doesn't obviate the need for negotiation among the Syrian parties, but I think it's a necessary precondition. And I do think that the regional players are somewhat more ready than the Syrian parties to come to grips with the fact that outright victory is impossible for either of them in Syria. Neither side frankly can win. I think we've seen that over the past few years. But both, or all of the sides I should say, cannot lose. And they cannot lose for a very long time at a great cost. So if you think about what Iran is having to deal with in the Syrian civil war, what we see is really a black hole for its already very stretched capabilities. It has damaged its reputation in the Arab world in a way that it fought against for many decades. It's fueled sectarian violence elsewhere and led to an upswing of Sunni extremism in Syria and Iraq and elsewhere, which is very threatening to Iran. Two minutes, okay. I have two more minutes to solve the war. Okay. Someone. I think Tehran's core interests in Syria are ensuring its connection with Hezbollah and Lebanon and in preventing Damascus in Syria from being controlled by a puppet regime of its regional rivals. And if we can satisfy those demands, Iran will negotiate. I think you could do a similar analysis for Saudi Arabia. It's a little bit harder, so I won't do it because I only have two minutes. But I think what this implied, you can ask me a question about that if you want, implies that both of these countries would settle for a power sharing agreement, although it will not be easy to get them to that place. I would say that the good news is that, and it's just a small ray of good news, is that this process has already, a glimmer of this process has already begun on the humanitarian track when they've been having meetings along these lines. And I think it's a reading between the lines. It's a conscious policy of the United States and some of the other external parties to bring these groups together and work on the issues in which they're most likely to agree, which is, I think, the humanitarian issues right now to try to build from there. We do have to understand that regardless of intervention, civil wars like this usually last for many years. If we want to cut that civil war short and reduce the suffering of the Syrian people, we have to think, I think, about how to lay the groundwork over time for settlement that can actually work. And I think that that requires dealing with the regional issues. Thank you, Layla, and thank you for the New America Foundation for the opportunity to be part of this panel. I think this flows very, I would say, kind of logically from Nader, who set the stage for what's really becoming the most tragic, maybe, moral and ethical crisis of our times into getting into Germany and talking about the three, maybe, circles of diplomacy that's required. I think what you like to hear from me, whether the opposition is ready to take part in Geneva, what are the concerns of the opposition, and that's what I'll address in my six minutes. The Syrian opposition, and here I'm going to talk mostly about the Syria coalition that's the largest group, has principally endorsed Geneva too. And I think most political actors in Syria on the side of the opposition do believe that this could offer an opportunity for a political solution and for an end to the conflict. Having said that, the coalition has not made a final decision to attend the 22nd meeting. That should be, in fact, decided on the 17th. But it's really hard to expect that this is going to be an easy decision. And I say this because of the fear of the coalition. This fear is derived from two main factors. The first one is the total lack of trust, in fact, in the other side. And that the other side is serious about the political solution, Allah Geneva. And let me here elaborate a little bit. The coalition endorsed Geneva clearly based on what we call our understanding of Geneva, which is based on some basic points. One of those, the purpose of this Geneva conference is democratic transition. Is to set the process of a democratic transition from this regime into a more responsive, more legitimate regime in Syria. Which entails, in fact, or part of that understanding, this process should begin with removal of Assad. I mean, that's clearly built into the understanding. This is not a precondition, again, this is an understanding of this process. The coalition, again, talked about the necessity of having a time table, a clear time table. This is not an open-ended process that could take years, which the regime would love to take in order, in fact, to make change things on the ground. The coalition felt that there were always some confidence-building measures that could make this process likely to succeed. And we highlighted two important ones. One is the granting of humanitarian access to those areas under siege. Immediate access, unfettered access to those areas. And I think this is very consistent with the international humanitarian law, with all of the demands of the key players. The second condition is the release of political prisoners, especially women and children, to start with that. I think those kind of conditions, if you will, were endorsed by the core friends of Syria, the 11 countries, in their last two meetings. So with that, I think, understanding, we believe the other side has not come to accept that the purpose of this Geneva is the process of democratic transition. They are coming to talk about fighting terrorists. They are coming to gain more time to show that they are, in fact, interested in talking peace while trying to still make military victory. I think this is extremely important. And that's, I think, the point for a lot of Syrians. And the coalition has to be very, very sensitive to those constituencies within Syria. They saw that Assad used chemical weapons last August and killed more than 1,400 people, very well documented, and got away with it. I mean, this deal of dismantling Assad's arsenal was a good point. But I think the most tragic weakness of that deal was there was no accountability. That's number one. Number two, it was a message to the Assad regime that you could kill by other means. And we've seen two major strategies that regime pursuits since the chemical weapons use, using siege as a, in fact, weapon of mass killing. And second, the escalation of the use of barrel bombs against civilian areas that in Aleppo alone killed 700 people in a matter of 12 days. So this is the fear that, in fact, kind of really dominates the thinking of the coalition and many, many Syrians. The second element of this, this fear is, in fact, the fact that we believe that our friends are great countries, and they are the right group of countries, including the U.S. at the top, European countries, some of the regional countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, all of them have been helping the Syrian cause, but they're not as committed to this, in fact, in our belief, the success of this democratic transition as the friends of the Assad are committed. And here I talk about Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, the Manki government. And that's sad. We have 114 countries recognize the coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people. But all of these 1400, 114 countries have done less than three and a half countries to sustain this, this reading. So honestly, we don't believe we have enough guarantees, even by our closest allies, going to Geneva, that this is going to be, you know, intended to achieve what it meant to be a democratic transition. Having said that, let me just end by presenting maybe some ideas that could really give hope to this meeting in Geneva. And I would start by taking one suggestion from a very thoughtful piece published yesterday by my friend Fred Hof and the Atlantic Council. He said, Ban Ki-moon should, in fact, tell the world that we are holding on on this Geneva unless the regime, you know, grants access to the UN agencies and personnel to all of those areas under siege. This is a very, very basic, I think, requirement. And this is something that the rest of the world should stand behind, including Russia. And I think this is, I'll elaborate on that. Are we holding it off, meaning we won't hold it? Yes. I mean, unless we achieve that. If we are really serious about finding a solution, let's do that. And I really, again... This is a strange solution to not have the diplomacy. No, I mean, you have the diplomacy. You're saying show us that you are willing to do something, I mean, to improve the situation. And this is not a concession to the opposition. This is just, you know, abiding by basic, decent international humanitarian law. Again, allowing the UN access to these areas. I just want to mention yesterday, two more people died in the Mukhayyam-i-Yarmouk of starvation. This is, I think, would lead to about 28, the number of those who are killed of starvation in the Yarmouk camp in the suburb of Damascus, in Damascus itself. Second, I really believe that all of the parties going to Geneva, and I think this is the work of the U.S. and its ally, is to require all who are going there to explicitly say we are going there to implement the Geneva communique. And that is to create that transitional governing body with full executive authority. Nothing else. This is the purpose of this conference. And I think we have not seen anything from the regime showing that. By the way, Iran was interested in attending this conference and going back to your regional circle. And I think it's a good idea. The reason why Iran was not invited, and many western countries, including the U.S., wanted to invite Iran, because Iran refused twice, three times, to say the basis of the Geneva as the implementation of the Geneva communique. And if you don't accept that frame of reference, there's really no prospect of any solution in Syria. Third, I think lately you've been following that despite all of the problems of the armed, free Syrian army, or the armed opposition, there was a positive trend, very positive kind of really trend. And that is all of the free Syrian army factions turn against ISIS. And ISIS is the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or Shem. And I think this is drew the line. That is, the Syrian people are fighting a war on two fronts. Fighting the regime on one hand and fighting the extremist al-Qaeda on the other hand. And I think that should have clearly been endorsed and supported by everybody on the part of the international community, especially on the part of the friends of Syria, on the U.S. And that lead me to present the idea that the U.S. again should resume not only non-lethal support of the free Syrian army, but lethal, serious support. If you want to give a chance to this political process, I think this should be done. And I would end actually by, again, going back to the U.S., because we really have to start with the international circle, and say, I think the weakness of this whole political process, it's been a labor of driven process. And it should be a U.N. and international community-driven process. And that's why the U.S. should take the leadership on this diplomatic political leadership, on in fact going into, you know, really reaching a political solution. And for that, I would suggest one idea, which was tried and worked. And that is to keep the credible threat of the use of force on the table. That's what led to the dismantling of the Assad chemical arsenal. Try it again, and you will get a political solution. Thank you. Thank you. You want to bring us home? That's a full plate. Let me actually just start by remembering Bob Pastor. When you said that was his last act, he died within the last week. And so his last public act would have been to write that op-ed with Jimmy Carter, a life devoted to trying to find peace in many places. I think what I want to talk about, I want to start by accepting, Jeremy's going to be amazed, that I'm going to start by agreeing with anything he said, but we've had a long and productive set of disagreements. No, but I do agree that you're not going to get a solution, even I think any kind of negotiated framework out of Geneva II without having a separate track that can address the regional proxies, regional supporters of different Syrian forces. I agree with Jeremy that I cannot see one room where everybody is sitting around the table where you're going to be able to save the things you need to say and cut the deals you need to cut with everybody there, much like as with Iran in the end, it was the U.S. talking to Iran offline that made progress in ways that then could be brought back. And I do think the point about the three circles is a helpful framework for thinking about it. So I would actually endorse a track one and a half, but together with moving forward to Geneva, what I want to talk about is let's assume we get to Geneva and I'm not sure we're going to get there as much as I would like to on the terms you're suggesting because I think the only way you're getting people to the table is they at this point each see a separate reason to go and I hope the opposition will also see a reason to go even though they will not, I think, get everything they want getting there. But let's assume we get everybody to the table and let's assume that there's no possibility of agreeing on an actual settlement now, but there is the possibility of agreeing on a Geneva 1 revised but that says there will be a transition, there will be a transition and the question is who's going to be able to participate in that transition? Let's start there. And then let's think about how you have to change the current dynamics to have any hope of some transitional process complete with a multinational force because I don't think there's any way to do that in a way that would change the current incentives. So right now the incentives are some diplomatic process is starting. We need to do whatever we can to gain ground in advance and while that process is happening. All the barrel bombs, the absolutely hideous ramp-up that we have seen since November has been particularly the regime saying we may have to go to the negotiating table we're going to do absolutely everything we can to regain territory that we've lost barrel bombs, siege, you name it. But I would say similarly at least among parts of the opposition there's similarly been okay you know we have got if we're going to be forced to compromise or negotiate in any way we want to be in the strongest possible position. So the escalation of fighting is not unusually is precisely in anticipation of a diplomatic process. If you actually want that diplomatic process to lead to something that would head you in the direction of peace you have to change the frame and essentially put down criteria for participating in any transition be they elections be they a run a transitional arrangement up to elections whatever it's going to be and you lay out criteria that say notwithstanding the hideous crimes that have already been committed but that essentially say look if you want to participate in the interim one, two, three months could be as many as six you are going to have to demonstrate a commitment to basic care of the Syrian people in other words the continuation of grave and systematic war crimes even though there's plenty enough to try everyone certainly the regime and various others now will disqualify you from participating in this process. So if you think about that as a starting framework you want to change the incentives so that the people who want to participate have an incentive not to do whatever it takes to get as much ground they can get but actually to demonstrate however superficial it might be a commitment to the kind of Syria we'd want to see to peace to not committing war crimes and to some kind of pluralism that's what I think you have to think about laying out at Geneva. The second point there is to bring R2P, the responsibility to protect back into the conversation. Now R2P right now and I'm certainly somebody partly responsible for this in the sense of my own advocacy is seen as that means military intervention and so no one wants to touch it. What it means is if you want to be the government of a country you cannot massacre your own people. That's the principle and it's not supposed to be primarily a military principle it's supposed to be a principle that is a frame for governing and for the international community intervening but not necessarily militarily when that is not happening. So you want to bring R2P back in. At this point we don't have the chemical weapons as a ground of international law. We do have R2P as not established international law but a strong principle that's been used brought back in in a non-military framework. Again to say if you're going to have any hope of being part of the future of government of Syria you have to demonstrate that you are not massacring your own people. And then more specifically there part of responsibility to protect part of not committing grave and systematic war crimes also has to include not killing medical personnel. One of the things we are seeing here we're seeing a humanitarian, a moral crisis of extraordinary degree we're seeing the systematic murder of anyone who is actually trying to provide medical assistance. And so as a specific example of the kind of behavior aside from lifting siege, aside from not using barrel bombs and other kinds of illegal weapons happens some notion that you actually have got to stop killing medical personnel and you have to allow access. So if you think about that framework of how to change the incentives what are the criteria for participating in any kind of transition to a future Syrian government and a peace settlement or at least a ceasefire and a multilateral force? I think you might at least be able to get agreement in principle on that frame which would be something and would be certainly more than I think many people expect we're going to be able to get out of Geneva. But I think you also and here I'm going to agree with you the United States and other countries who stand who have the most to lose from the continuation of this conflict and I'm going to come back to that. Those of us who have the most to lose not only because it will be a moral stain equivalent to Rwanda, to Armenia, all sorts of others but strategically have to decide now what we will do if this does not produce some kind of settlement. If it does not produce something concrete enough that there's a process you can move towards. And here I think we actually have to say that although chemical weapons was the clearest line in terms of the violation of international law the systematic massacre of your people through the means we are seeing is a similar ground for actual intervention and from the US point of view strategically if you do not intervene you are effectively setting yourself up for the, it may not be an Islamic state of Syria and Iraq but it will be a al-Qaeda haven for the foreseeable future that will directly menace US and European security. Some combination of those arguments I think has to support the claim that the United States with other like-minded states would be prepared to use force in the way we were prepared to use force for chemical weapons which was not boots on the ground I am not proposing boots on the ground we were prepared to use missiles, possibly even drones to take out the weapons of in that case mass destruction this is mass destruction too we are killing tens of thousands of people and millions more displaced hundreds of thousands could still die so I think there has to be a credible threat that we will return to that posture if this does not actually produce something otherwise I actually, I do think we could be looking at Lebanon and where I want to end is what that would mean for us here in Europe, in the United States, in the Middle East as a whole and I, again, for me the standing by and watching a country disintegrate with hundreds of thousands killed, millions displaced really the shattering of one of the oldest countries in the world from my point of view standing for US values, that's enough but that's not enough for lots of people I would say in 2016, 2017, 2021 we will see the same kinds of attacks on Europe and on us as we saw in 9-11 from the very similar pattern that we saw in Afghanistan there was a civil, there was a war, there was a civil war there was no governance whatsoever there were ungoverned spaces populated by al-Qaeda and affiliated groups it was a training ground, it was a training ground that we have now then spent 10 years trying to ultimately wipe out and put Afghanistan in a different place you have Syria with all of those conditions except much closer to Europe and to the United States much easier for people from all over the world but particularly already we're seeing from Europe and the United States to train in that ungoverned part of Syria and possibly Iraq and to come back so from a straight strategic point of view if the Obama administration does not act in some way that stops this conflict and puts however fragile a framework in place to turn it back to some kind of viable government we are going to be harvesting the security consequences of what's happening for the next 5, 10, 15 years and it will be way too late and we will no longer be in a position to try to respond in the way that we responded relatively unsuccessfully first in Afghanistan so I'm going to leave it there Okay, I mean there's been obviously a lot of very poignant and different sets of comments a lot for discussion I want to turn it over to the audience very quickly but before I do there's one point that I want to sort of press to the panelists which is that Anne Marie when you were talking about what would be sort of a good baseline to emerge from a Geneva meeting or a set of meetings you spoke about agreement that there will be a transition and agreement about who will be part of that transition who will be eligible to be a part of that transition who will be eligible for that transition and then you defined that eligibility basically on a set of values related to pluralism and probably the underlying grievances and issues that arose in the beginning of the Syrian uprising and I think that that's a useful frame for us to think about to think about not so much politics and parties but values but what I'm worried about is that it's not clear those values are not clear to the Syrian people at this point in time one because they are facing such incredible levels of repression from many different actors and the politics on the ground are shifting rapidly and there is a great amount of dispersal and so to build a consensus around a set of values for Syrians is something one that hasn't occurred and I don't think we're there at a point where we're looking at values and not at individuals and parties and so that still to me is a challenge and it's a challenge also when we think about the regional actors and lining up the regional actors like Saudi Arabia and Iran if they are to come to an agreement one would assume that that agreement would not be about values and what a future Syria looks like but it would be about how we are going to who's going to be a part of a future transitional regime so essentially they will be behind the scenes drawing the map of the transitional authority and I don't think that the Syrian people will necessarily accept that nor do I necessarily think that that will bring about stability because it's a question that to me comes back to ripeness and fitting these different pieces different circles of engagement together and so my takeaway thus far is we still have a lot of thinking to do lest we get into a situation of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process where we just have endless processing but a lot less killing that would be a really good statement to arrive in that's one response I'll allow the panelists each to respond to me and respond to the others before we open it up so I'll just say I did articulate something that would look toward pluralism but I actually would start on something just much more basic but my starting point is this is an infinitely complex situation in every way but one and the one is that we are standing by and watching a government massacre its own people and watching parts of the opposition massacre each other and treat ordinary Syrians also in completely unacceptable ways so that where the world has to start but it has to start in a way that it then follows up just more pious proclamations is to say no matter how this evolves if you even want to be eligible to be a part of this process you have to demonstrate over the next three months whatever the period is that whatever you've done in the past you are now willing to stop so in a sense it's like saying you have to open up to the United Nations but it's broader than that because it can't just be aimed at one party so your pluralism would then follow on that but the starting point I think the international community's strongest argument is you are breaking every conceivable law we have and to move forward everybody can talk to their own people but these are going to be the criteria so you want your side to play this has got to be the criteria and then you do an awful lot of behind the scenes regional work I would start with something much more basic in terms of values any party to the conflict that prevents humanitarian aid from going into besieged towns there has to be consequences to opposition to delivering humanitarian aid I think that's a basic political principle a political value that I think we should and it's concrete sort of policy decision that can sort of be well that's it and I think it would have to be the United States and that comes back to the fundamental question here which is at the root of the crisis in Syria and how to resolve it is the absence of political will the absence of political will particularly from the countries in the global system the United States in particular that can make a difference if it decides to prioritize Syria and until that happens and unless that happens I don't see the Geneva 1.5 negotiations because actually this issue has come up at the United Nations when it's been proposed that we have to have humanitarian aid delivered to starving populations and Russia has always vetoed or said that they will not even sign on to a presidential statement let alone a resolution so how far can you go when there's not even a basic agreement that starving people should be allowed to get the basic food supplies that they need to continue to live so I think these things are all connected of course but my reading of it it comes back to decisions here in Washington and the absence of political will by the Obama administration to prioritize Syria it's pretty clear now from my reading of Obama's Middle East policy that the fundamental priority is the Iran nuclear negotiations and Syria is way down below and we now know that when chemical weapons were used in September and Obama was threatening airstrikes that there were negotiations going on and we now have evidence that high-ranking Iranian officials have said that had airstrikes taken place in September the nuclear deal would have ended so these things are all interlinked but I think for U.S. decisions here have to U.S. foreign policy here has to be at the center of our discussions Jeremy and then Dr. Nujib last word I'll wait to have questions from you let's go ahead Interesting tactic I do think that this framework of values is a useful way of looking at it I think that what we have in the Syria and civil war frankly like almost any war is a sort of contest of values and I think if you're from the audience if you're trying to sort of understand sometimes when we seem to be talking past each other I think that what we've introduced a sort of different hierarchy of goals behind what we're saying up here we everybody is deeply offended and everybody's values is outraged by what's going on in Syria but I think there is this question at the heart of what we're looking at is to whether what our primary goal is to end this suffering, to end this war or to restore the deep democratic and humanitarian values that were to bring justice to the deep humanitarian and democratic values that the Assad regime has violated in other words what are we trying to do are we trying to end the war in a way that ends the suffering or are we trying to overthrow the Assad regime I think frankly both are very worthy goals but they are different goals if we prioritize ending the war we are implicitly accepting a compromise of our values in order to end that suffering that means that we're doing a deal in essence with the devil and one that will be obnoxious to us on some very core levels and so we but in contrast if you elevate the pluralistic values you say well I'm going to put into place all these preconditions for people to negotiate and essentially says that they accept my values but that's actually essentially saying that my side gets to prevail in the war so you're simply saying we need to overthrow the Assad regime and this gets to my discomfort with a lot of the proposals that are made for US intervention you said Dr. Hashemi that it's a question of political will I think that there is a question of political will but there's also a very serious question of capability it's not simply a question of political will I don't think that and this was something that President Obama was very clear on when I was working on this issue in the US government we don't really know what to do we don't know how to do it we have been engaged on these problems similar problems in many places in many parts of the world and we have often made the problem worse it is not simply a question of the United States deciding that this must be solved and therefore it will be solved the military it's intriguing because I do accept the geopolitical risks that Anne-Marie laid out I think they're very stark and they're very dangerous but what's interesting is that the United States in its invasion of Iraq for example and I'm pleased before you jump on me I'm not saying that Syria is the same as Iraq but the United States is the same as it was in Iraq and in its invasion of Iraq it created most of the geopolitical risks that you just outlined as a danger correctly I think from Syria so we have to problematize this actor we have to say what are we capable of President Obama when the bureaucracy would come to him and say here's what we could do in Syria he would say but where will this end how are you going to get me out of the problem because they would always give him the first step and they would the first step was always get rid of the Assad regime but as we found out to our cost many times it's the easiest in the first step I came to call this actually in the government relying on the Seinfeld example which is always useful the Yadda Yadda Yadda doctrine because essentially we destroy the Assad regime Yadda Yadda Yadda there's stability in Syria but as Jerry Seinfeld might have said didn't actually Yadda Yadda Yadda over the most important part and I think we have learned that lesson or should have learned that lesson recently and we need to apply it one quick I grant you if that's Iraq but you know there is Bosnia and I mean there are ways where Clinton had to make he didn't know that that was going to end in fact at the time everybody said oh you can't do this and say take ground troops off the ground you can't start bombing and say I will not send in ground troops what kind of military action is that does it intense diplomatic effort so we do have examples where you can't say if Obama is going to insist on a perfect strategy all the way through he's never going to do anything ever we never have perfect certainty the question is the cost and the benefits and I agree if you were talking Iraq and ground troops I would be exactly where you are but if you're talking a more limited military action and it's true when we were threatening to act among chemical weapons not only did Assad act very very fast but so too did Al Qaeda people scattered like crazy they thought we were actually coming after them Jeremy and I could go forever sorry we'll go to the audience I do have a response we have a mic for the questions thank you we have one in the back here thank you very much hello there my name is Edward Joseph great to see you all excellent discussion Jeremy let me begin with you I will salute you for your candor about the way it's always a bad sign but you provided a framework which I think has been very useful already so let me just pursue it if I could briefly because we are sure absolutely let me come right to it you listed those three circles but as one of the colleagues I believe Najib mentioned the fourth isn't there which is the internal the intra opposition struggle so you have those three the internal side of the opposition then in addition you have the intra opposition and then that brings us back to the first which is where you want to emphasize doesn't it in other words isn't there a risk Jeremy of by twisting the opposition's arms dragging them without the conditions that Najib I thought very thoughtfully put forward without meeting some of these basic reasonable conditions dragging them into Geneva those who will show up isn't there a risk then that you weaken their position if Geneva fails and they emerge with nothing and then briefly what Anne Marie said about Bosnia I was also wondering Jeremy if you had any comment on that you listed a number of precedents that we got successfully to Dayton was the effort to build up the capabilities of the Bosnians and the Croats so there was a modicum of leverage which made the diplomacy work and I was just wondering academically do you see any possibility in Syria even if you pursue your 1.5 how will that approach succeed if the leverage remains with the Assad regime and its supporters thank you very much okay thank you let's take a couple more questions and then the panel can answer please we have one here in the front I have a rather simple one what do you think is going to happen not what ought to happen will come out of the meeting one of the people I've laid out all of what they think should be and what happens and I'm not even disputing I have to agree with everybody what will happen your opinions that's a million dollar question in the back here hi I'm Maria Saab I work here I wanted to ask in the news you know we're seeing all the conversations about the peace negotiations in Israel and Palestine Geneva 2 and everyone comes at it with it's not going to work how do we restore positive spirits in these negotiations if people are going into it thinking it's already going to fail isn't that a self-fulfilling prophecy it's just going to fail and even with I think sir you mentioned about how the coalition is hesitant to go to Geneva because of the distrust of the regime how can you come into a negotiation process with more openness despite the difficulties and the obstacles of the conditions and the politics that the regime is proposing Jeremy you got the first thing me fantastic you got a chance to respond to me yeah I guess I'll use that opportunity Bosnia I think it's a very interesting precedent of course every example is unique and it's always difficult to sort of pull out the elements that retain but I'll make an effort I think in Bosnia there were two elements I think that were critical preconditions for this sort of air strike option to work one you mentioned which was the build up less of the Bosnian forces than of the Croatian forces which were an intriguing sort of anomaly there's nothing analogous in the Syrian case because they were the only thing analogous I think would be building up the Turkish army or something they were outside of the theater but they were willing to intervene as an interested outside force and they completely changed and of course it was the American training of that army which completely changed the balance in Bosnia but the second thing which I think is even more important is getting what might be called the regional peace right the precondition I think was getting the Russians and the Serbs into a place where they weren't going to reinforce the Bosnian Serbs as a result of our actions because if they did that would simply escalate the war so I guess I could imagine a plan like Anne-Marie's to have the external forces willing to respond to the effort the airstrikes or whatever or the arming or whatever we're talking about in a tit for tat escalatory fashion and that means getting the Russians on board for whatever we're going to do it means getting the Iranians on board that again means a lot of compromises that I don't particularly want to make but the question that we had is on board oh yeah we all have to say you want me to move to the next question look if I knew what was going to happen I wouldn't be here I'd be playing the stock market I don't know what's going to happen I think that the only thing that I think frankly all of us have tried to do is to create conditions which create incentives for people to move in the right direction at the end of the day there's a lot of craziness in the Syrian Civil War and there's a lot of unpredictability so I wouldn't I would never venture to answer your question can I I want to comment actually on one point raised by Ann Marie and two points mentioned by Jeremy the question of the conditions you presented for those who should be disqualified from attending in the future my concern with that and I agree with all good conditions and values that we all subscribe to there already been violated over and over and over by mostly the regime and it's not fair to put the moral equivalency of the opposition and the regime on this I think one of the weaknesses of this whole thing and why this conflict is entering its third year is because we let this regime get away over and over and over with crimes against humanity which has you know as Nader mentioned there are so many evidence to that so I think my concern again and I think if you really want to give this process a chance the element of accountability must be included and again as someone who student of politics I could wait for the timing of it I'm not saying you know let's go and try as I said today this may not be happening but my two issues with Jeremy the first question you know when you say the question for the Obama administration is not just a political well but capabilities it's I really you know my I totally disagree with this question of capability I think if there is a country in the world that can make a difference in this or any other conflict it's the US and you know we had so many missed opportunities to do less you know less than intervention even intervention by airstrike or drone or so many I mean remember that moment when all of the Obama's advisors recommended that he should arm the moderate opposition and there were no ISIS and there were no extremists and there were so many missed opportunities so my concern with asking this question because you don't have clarity from A to Z you know we don't do anything no I think what you need is a clear vision and I think this is one of the really sad things about Syria it's one of the cases that where both US interest and value come together in the best way possible you know if you want to deal with the Iranian nuclear question if you want to create a moderate camp in the Middle East if you want to promote the values of democracy I would assure you that change in Syria in a democratic direction would change the whole region positively and unfortunately it's actually what happened in Syria the stalemate did contribute into some of the setback we've seen in the Arab you know spring countries it's all connected so again I would really very seriously again contest this you know again by giving more excuses you know because it's not clear because it's difficult I know it's difficult I know there are sacrifices I know all of that but the cost of doing nothing is much much higher than again doing something and again this is my problem well the credible threat of the use of force as I said I mean it's really worth and it should be again reconsidered seriously if you want to go back and then incite Russia and Iran to exert pressure on this regime my second point you know it's not this is not a question of you know what we're trying to do in the conflict or remove a regime the two are connected I mean you cannot in the conflict by keeping Assad in power I assure you of that after killing 130,000 and displacing 48% of the Syriac's population Assad cannot survive there is no political solution with Assad in power absolutely I would assure you of that and I think if we don't get to that and this whole process is again about creating an alternative body creating a this you know governing body transitional governing body with full executive authority which basically strip Assad of his power and open the chance for some of the followers of Assad to be part of the future of Syria but you know I'm so amazed sometimes how would we insist on Assad staying in power well because you know he was always supported by committed friends like Iran and Russia and you know again we are willing to twist all of those crimes against humanity and violations of international humanitarian law and everything else that we stand for as an international community my again my really simple issue here is that there's not going to be a successful Geneva if will not lead to the departure of Assad it may not have to be a precondition but it would have to be an early outcome of this process I mean I will try to I hear that I mean I do I do think though that the ending at least getting a ceasefire probably with Assad still in place and then putting in place a transition he can't be there long term but I'm not sure that if you insist on him going as a precondition to a ceasefire I I worry that you're you know you're going to look at an endless war but let me answer you try to answer your question about well I will make a prediction in terms of what I think will happen not probably a specific as you'd like but I think we will get an agreement out of Geneva to that is more than an agreement just to meet again and that is more that is actually a some set of concrete steps that some parties are going to take and the reason I think that's going to happen goes from part Maria to your your point I think because the US and Iran are moving everybody knows that in the Middle East that's a game changer right if we actually get back to a situation where the United States recognizes Iran and once again is engaging Iran in diplomacy as well as Turkey as well as other countries that's a big game changer and people want to be out in front of it rather than behind it and similarly Putin wants to stay on the international stage right this is his moment the reason where we're letting Putin drive it I think is because as Jeremy said we're going to get further if he looks good right this we may not like it but that's part of what diplomacy is he's got Sochi coming up he's got a difficult domestic situation he wants to stay in the game which is one reason I'm suggesting an alternative if this doesn't happen you're out of the game we return to our initial where we were at the moment where we were going to strike for chemical weapons so I think the combination of the Saudis being very nervous about what we're doing with Iran the Turks probably being nervous in various ways the different parties wanting to at least be still in the game we're going to get something that is more than just we'll meet again in another year and hear some principles okay it's interesting I'm hearing two strands of discussion one is about Syria and another is about the global and regional actors and I still think the challenge is how do we merge those too and I'm not so sure it's easily done given the way the proxy war is going okay another round of questions we have one in the back and then front let's say very quickly is that you can introduce yourself introduce yourself oh my name is Alan Mendelsohn formerly of the State Department presently in the private practice of law what I want you to say very quickly is that it's most unlikely that you're going to get anything coming out of the United States and I think we should all recognize that and we should have recognized that from the fact of what happened when Obama merely threatened to use weapons and biochemicals the country rose up against them it wasn't just the intellectuals it was people in Vermont it was people all over the country that did not want to get involved and we have to sit and recognize that now why don't they want to get involved and this is my second quick point now I'm making it as quickly as possible but I sure would like your views on it this is not a typical civil war this is not a war between as you like to say Iran this is a religious war it's a religious civil war and we've not faced anything like this in our lifetimes we have faced political wars that we've been able to handle through a paradigm but this is now a paradigm shift into a Sunni Shia war okay thank you thank you a front we have a hand in the back and then to the front thanks Ken Meyercourt, World Oaks the nonviolent opposition in Syria has achieved some remarkable victories over the last three years through discussions with the government they got a new constitution written which converted Syria from one party state to a multi-party state after the constitution been ratified in a referendum parliamentary elections were held which resulted in a parliament that manifests a diversity of opinion it's not only a dream of seeing in our own congress there are presidential elections scheduled for May if President Assad chooses to run and is re-elected what legitimacy will the violent opposition have if you're really concerned about the welfare of the Syrian people and the foreign involvement all foreign involvement I'll finish my sentence if you don't mind have the rebels put down their guns let the government regain control of the country and defeat Assad in a presidential election are you talking about Syria? I'm not sure okay thank you for the lecture thank you we have a question in the front here Mark Harrison with the United Methodist Church Office I just want to say back to the first question that was just in this round was back to Anna Marie that that dog don't hunt American people have heard that argument that you've raised and they've said no so how do we motivate the American people to be engaged in this secondly my point and question is you have the Syrian opposition here who are they accountable to? you talk about the government needs to be accountable but who are they accountable and you all have given them the credibility but we see all what we have when we have these people who want democracy and human rights and I'm dealing with South Sudan right now you've got the whole situation of what happened in Libya and so forth so those are just some concerns that I have and I'm not saying that you are just illegitimate but we need to know if you're going to put resources and possible lives on the line that these quote democratic and human rights forces okay and Emery do you want to take the first question well actually it's a question for everyone how do we get the American people engaged I'll offer a comment well I think President Obama needs to lead he needs to make the moral and political argument for why Syria matters why there are the ongoing non-resolution of this conflict affects our values and our strategic interests and he hasn't made that argument I'm pretty close to it if you look at the speeches that he was given when he was threatening airstrikes in September he sort of did talk about those moral stakes when he went into some detail about the consequences of gassing your own population but then he stopped I think he needs to do much more of that and I think if he would make those arguments it would have an effect on public opinion people would begin to take the argument seriously it's not going to convince everyone but up until now he has chosen to make a different set of arguments in the Syrian conflict in late August as quote a conflict of ancient sectarian hatreds that just feeds into this argument that there's no political solution we can't do anything about it it has nothing to do with the fact that one family has been in power in Syria for 43 years and that there is a struggle for democracy going on so when you frame it in those sort of argument in that terminology then you feed into this sort of argument that there's nothing we can do this is rooted in ancient sectarian hatreds and so why should the United States or anyone get involved so I think Obama needs to shift course he needs to make the political arguments and if he does so I think significant segments of the population will take him seriously not everyone but I think a critical mass will eventually emerge yeah, great I'm not sure he feels that way I guess I would point out to my understanding I don't come at this question and don't come at there at the position that you described in a vacuum they come at it from a very hard experience and I guess this is where I get at again back to the question of capability honestly if you believe that the United States is not an unproblematic actor in the Middle East and it simply has through a sheer assertion of political will and a sheer assertion of presidential leadership the ability to bring stability to this region I just don't think that you've been paying attention to the last ten years and I think that this is this is a real problem here and I think that from the standpoint of the American public there was a leadership that moved them into the Middle East in a very activist way in the last ten years and they don't feel that it worked and you know I think that there are some truths and some falsities to this but I think it's a reasonable case and it can't simply be overcome by a question of leadership I think the public is looking at the recent record and it's troubled by the trillions of dollars that have been spent by the American lives and other lives that have been lost and by the lack of results and the instability that has increased and resulted this is not a completely irrational stance I take your point that these things are distinct and that there are things that could and perhaps should be done with leadership but these are serious questions they're not just a question of people seeing the righteousness of the cause they're troubled I think when we sort of stand up here and dismiss these things and say well all we need is leadership no we have had a lot of trouble doing well demonstrating the capability that you guys are asking for and I think that the American public deserves to ask these difficult questions and deserves better answers than we're able to give them and I think that President Obama has his own understanding of the problem and his own understanding of the solutions that have been offered to him I don't think that he's looking for perfection and I think that he has in fact done quite a bit in Syria but when he looks at some of the solutions that are proffered to him he doesn't see one which presents a reasonable chance of moving the situation more toward US goals stability and I think that that is informed by recent experience and it is informed by the public's understanding of recent experience and it should be two quick points again I disagree about this point I think the great thing about the case of Syria is that it's not we're not talking about unilateral US role leadership in this process we've seen so many countries willing to commit resources to do more and I think one of the problem is the fact that this group of the friends of Syria especially the core friends of Syria have been lacking leadership and I think that leadership lies only in one place and that is the White House there are countries willing to commit money countries willing to give weapons countries willing to even do more and they all have done in fact quite a lot I think you needed that leadership of that one country which would not ask a lot of the US in fact again the US so far close to 1.3 billion dollars in humanitarian assistance and the humanitarian assistance is an outcome of this conflict so instead of addressing one of the consequences unintended consequences address the core issue of the conflict and again I do understand the US public opinion I've been following the US and the mode in this country and I again think this is I'm very troubled by the fact that when I say lack of political leadership I mean it at all levels I'm not just saying the US should go and do this I understand the Bush years that we were against that we felt that this is again we don't want to repeat the mistakes of Iraq and so on so forth again I do find a lot of elements but to put them together you need that creative leadership and I haven't seen any sign of creativity from this administration my second quick point related to some of the questions raised about the opposition versus the regime and this is I heard that actually Syria is a pluralistic democratic country already well great I mean why are we doing this anyway but who do we find ourselves accountable to well simply to the Syrian people I mean when I say I want an immediate lifting of siege of those areas these are my concern my concern are the 10 million Syrians who are either displaced or refugees my people my people are killed who are lost their lives who are missing who are in prison those are the people I feel accountable for my main concern as an opposition is to end the killing this is my first priority and second to set the country on a path of some process of a democratic long term and in fact the other side that supports us that has a place in it and by the way this is not a religious conflict I'm sorry but this is started as a very simple case of people rising up peacefully demanding basic rights of freedom and dignity and democracy like all of the Arab countries and it turned after 7 months into a militarized conflict because the Assad never stopped the killing for a single day and this is all documented this is not I just to give you a sense who's killing whom today when you think like last couple of days ISIS which is the Sunni extremist al-Qaeda affiliated organization killing members of al-Nusra which is very close to the left of al-Qaeda they killed 100 of them right there so Sunnis extremist Sunnis are killing another extremist Sunni so this is not a religious conflict there are so many levels of this conflict you know there is the conflict again among various groups there is a conflict between the opposition the Christian army and the regime there is a proxy conflict that's feeding into this but this could turn into a very sectarian regional war and could spill over to other countries if we don't do you know if we don't try to do something to stop it right away and then it's really going to be so costly it's going to be so extremely difficult to try to contain it that's why I think again it's not too late to do that but at the essence of it this has not changed Syrians would like the basic basic changes here and again if this is not going to lead to some kind of departure of this criminal family and those who committed crimes against humanity and then sit the country on a path of some transition again this could go on for years unfortunately so three quick points because we're out of time first just on the religious yes there's lots of religious elements but surely we know from Bosnia and elsewhere religious passions are manipulated for political ends these are cities in which people have intermarried and lived together Syria has prided itself on its religious pluralism you can whip up religious passions in this country for political ends and then you see that through history so yes they're religious divensions but this is what Assad wanted he wanted to take what was a political conflict turned it into a terrorist a Sunni extremist conflict against his government he's done everything he could to reinforce that narrative and that we have that narrative but that we had in the Balkans either second on the second and third on the question of Obama's leadership in the American people in the first place I thought Obama should have gone to Congress on Libya he didn't I thought he should have even though I strongly supported the intervention and actually I could understand why he wanted to go to the American people this time I don't think he gave the proper leadership in that context and I also think you know if we only let the American people dictate we wouldn't have lend lease right it is the job of the president at times to understand our national security interests and our values in the world that's what he's charged with the Constitution does give him more room than it gives him in domestic policy but the final point the point I would make to the president is Mr. President you want to be a peace president you came into office wanting to end two wars and to make it harder for future presidents to start those wars you've done a lot of that you now risk leaving office with a raging war in the middle of the in the Middle East which still is important strategically no matter how much we'd like to turn to Asia our oil comes from there Israel is there it is right in the heart of the Mediterranean next to Europe next to other parts of the world we care about you're going to leave a raging war a possibility of a homeland for al-Qaeda not only in Syria but in Iraq I would go to the American people and say you know know how many people died in Fallujah well we are undoing all of that we're undoing it because we will not take a set of acts that while they look big now are going to look small when we look back in two years just as we look back now in last year and say well we could have acted then in 2012 in February we could have acted then but at each time it just really complicated and hard and uncertain so we didn't act I would say this president is risking most of what he wants to be his legacy and people are not going to judge him kindly unless we act okay I want to thank all the panelists for your thoughtful comments I am sure that in a year's time we'll still be discussing Syria but I think the discussion is advancing and I think that this this was a helpful useful session so thank you everyone