from the al qaeda-linked on the ground. it's a sense that the battle has really been this kind of bloody stalemate for 2 1/2 years, and the notion of a u.s. strike that would not just take out chemical weapons capacity but some of their air capacity from a regime that is very comfortable sending stud missiles at civilians. >> but this is precisely the ambiguity that is at the heart of the debate over syrian intervention, which is that if you talk to people allied with the rebel forces, if you talk to people connected to the oppositi opposition, the hope is that this strike will tip the balance of the battlefield. yet, the argument that john kerry, president obama and others have to make to the american people is that this is not a strike to tip the balance of the battlefield, because we refuse to take possession of the civil war. this is a punitive strike for the use of chemical weapons to enforce an international norm. yet, that's not how it's perceived on the ground in syria. >> welcome to a wicked problem in the middle east in the 21st century. the obama administration has to play to an audience at home while scaring an audience in damascus. it's very complicated. but across the board what we're