opportunity of military action toward that goal. did you hear a satisfactory answer to that? >> here is the answer i heard across several conversations, several briefings on that point. and i think this is complicated. we have two goals here, the short-term goal, what we are debating today and what the authorization seeks, the brief strike that continues to deter assad, and the use of chemical weapons on his own people. our own objective is to make sure assad leaves syria and the assad regime ends. but we shouldn't try to achieve that through military goals. to do that would require the kind of massive intervention that was required in the iraq war to remove saddam from power. instead, we heard today, and from senator johnson's questions and at other points in the hearing, and from general dempsey, to pursue that goal from diplomatic means. this is one of the issues that i believe president obama will raise with president putin in russia this week. it is our hope, rather than have