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And today when the idea of there being something called fake news think books help us celebrate the way that words and facts are grounded in storytelling and it history. Watch our coverage of the Los Angeles Times festival of cspan, where history unfolds daily. A 1979, cspan was created as Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. On washington journal, we took a look at the possible next steps the u. S. Should take in syria. This is about 45 minutes. On last roundtable years strike in syria. We are joined by john hannah, former National Security office or for Vice President cheney and senior counselor at the foundation for defense of democracy. And a senior fellow at the council on foreign relations. Welcome to you both. Mr. Gordan, what did last thursday strike accomplish . Thursdays strike accomplish . Guest i think if the culturist something important. To send a message that there will be a cost for the use of chemical weapons. Thats a narrow message and it doesnt mean the United States is going to intervene to resolve the civil war. Means if you use chemical weapons the United States will take them very seriously and do something about it. If you think about the opposite of that message, failing to do something would be a different message. That message would be go right ahead. You can use chemical weapons as much as you like. Not only Bashar Alassad but anyone else in the region. Bashar alassad but anyone else in the region. I would agree with that. I think it was a very limited and welldefined strike that had a very circumscribed political objective which was to determine assad. Determine it was very limited but its an Important International norm ashar alassad and his patrons have all signed up to. Use not broad support for the action. Syriant going to solve crisis. Can people cannot casually use these kinds of weapons you will have accomplished something. Do you think the administration has or should make clear what action will result in another United States strike Going Forward . Guest i think there is certainly utility to having the president and all of his spokesman get out there and at least clarify what they believe this action means for american policy toward syria and communicate that both to the American People and the rest of the world. This is a president who seems to value some ambiguity in his policy. Keep people guessing about what he may or may not do. I dont think he does want to in advancer commit exactly under what circumstances he may use force. There is some utility to that but you cant conduct Foreign Policy in a great democracy like the United States and expect to have sustained Popular Support for it as well as internationally unless you are beginning to communicate exactly what you are about. Host heres sean spicer yesterday talking about what constitutes Donald Trumps red line. I think the president has been very clear that there were a number of lines that were crossed last week. We saw the last administration. They drew these red lines and the red lines were run over. What did not just syria but the world saw last week as a president that is going to act decisively and proportionally and with justification when it comes to actions like that. I will tell you, the answer is that if you gas a baby, if you put a barrel bomb in to innocent people, you will see a response from this president. That is unacceptable. One of the things i dont want to start doing is saying if you do this, this is the reaction you are going to get. The president has made very clear through the transition and now this president that he is not going to telegraph in response to every corresponding action because that just tells the opposition or the enemy what you are going to do. President is going to be very clear that he is keeping his cards close to the best. Host mr. Gordan on that message. Muddled message. It is sort of ironic it came in the context of a criticism of the previous administrations muddledness about red lines. It got mixed up with chemical barrel bombs. They have been using barrel bombs extensively for years. , yesterdayding it secretary tillerson said the United States would be out there protecting innocents everywhere. Its very confusing. Run the risk if you say you are doing something against barrel bombs and threatening innocents you are basically implying a readiness to intervene in a civil war. And that is very risky. I dont think its what they meant. They need to clarify or run the risk of slippery slope escalation. Host you served in the obama administration. Debate over what the red line was then. Can you talk about how that is playing into todays action in syria . And you arerelevant seeing this administration struggle with the same challenges. Early on in the civil war president obama said if they used chemical weapons that would change his calculus. He wasnt prepared to intervene in this militarily. In the course of the year there were reports of chemical weapons used but nothing major or really whenble until august 2013 they killed 1400 people with chemical weapons. The president said, thats what i meant. We need to do something about it. Todid order the military prepare strikes and was prepared to enforce the red line. He didnt wantd to do so without congressional support. There has been a big debate on that. I think he should have gone ahead and forced that red line. I think the president felt to do it without congressional and public support and legitimacy ram the risk of not being supported down the road when things got difficult. He went to congress and Congress Said we are not going to back that. , it would bena interesting to hear your thoughts on whether he should have enforced that redline. No question i think he did to enforce it. The counterargument will get is that while not taking military , a political process ensued in which they convinced assad together with Vladimir Putin and russia to take out a very large quantity of those chemical weapons. I dont want to understate the importance of that. Because its just dangerous in the middle of a civil to have huge quantities of chemical weapons floating about getting into the hands of groups like isis are al qaeda. That was a real risk and we and our allies worried a deal about that risk. Failure to act after such a buildup after establishing that redline, putting all the pieces thelace not only here in United States put together with some of our best allies in the region that we were going to take action and not to do it, to appear to throw the decision whether or not to use force over to the congress i think really did hurt american credibility over the long term. Our allies inized in a way that just began to establish a very negative dynamic in which perhaps a few hundred thousand more syrians had been killed. I think that america took messages i think flat amir putin tookadimir messages from that. I think there were all kinds of bad and unintended consequences from that failure to act even while recognizing there were some positives in that deal with respect to the chemical weapons. Host if you want to join in in this segment of the washington , question for john hannah or Philip Gordon. Republicans 202 7488001. Democrats 202 7488000. Ndependents 202 7488002 patrick is in pennsylvania. Good morning. I understand the foundation for the defense of democracy, the organization is actually a spinoff of aipac . The israeli lobby . President kennedy wanted to require them to register as an agent of a Foreign Government and wasnt successful in that venture before he was assassinated. I think syria is probably the most diverse country in the world. Half of the minorities are the christians, shia muslims, the uze, armenians and the greeks. And they all support thassad. They are terrified of the jihadists. We have been delivering military lethal weapons to the sunni , and manyo the rebels of these weapons have gotten to nusra front, even al qaeda and have resulted in the deaths of many innocent people. And we were delivering these weapons through saudi arabia. Uae, turkey was involved. All of the sunni countries. Host john hannah, i will let you start first. Me clarify the color was wrong about everything he said about the foundation for defense of democracy and its various connections. Otherwise have Great Respect for there is such spinoff from aipac. I think the caller makes some good points. Syria is an incredibly complex mosaic demographically which is why the civil war has become so difficult. There is real problems in terms of the degree to which some small segment of the population welcomes the approach of isis. But it didnt occur in a vacuum. Ofoccurred in a context awful, repressive governments. And those places like iraq and minorityere you have or shiite related governments completely marginalizing large parts of the sunni population, i dont think we ought to be arming radical jihadists in syria. At the same time, there is a fundamental problem if you want to get any kind of handle on these conflicts in syria and iraq. You have tens of millions disenfranchised sunnis that you have to figure out what to do with these people. How do you get a better degree of governments to bring them into the process and really begin to take the ground out from under groups of isis and al qaeda. Guest the caller makes an important car makes an important point about the change fundingconsequences of and arming opposition to overthrow the government. Sometimes people dont like to admit it but there are many syrians who do still support president assad, even some sunnis who are afraid of the opposition. And the truth is that we have been supporting a strategy for six years of hoping the opposition would get strong heugh to get to the point would negotiate his own party are but i think that is highly unlikely because he is backed by russia and iran and a bunch of syrians. And i think to perpetuate it would mean more refugees and position. Our host lets go to michael, an independent. Caller yes, sir. Mr. Cheneysg to former advisor. The perpetuate her of the biggest lie in history, in terms of the iraq war and mass weapons. And i am looking to the other guy and all they reflect is that for the next steps in syria, the American People should be charging this government with treason for misrepresenting, distorting, lying. It is an act of treason when it invokingwars and the of wars on the American People. Right now, that action could have caused a Major Nuclear catastrophe, which it still may do. Which is invoking war on the American People. That i take the point a real concern now that russia is in syria and in force. That any American Military action that begins to go after russian interests in syria, hitting the president assad regime does create a certain amount of risk. With an unintentional conflict between russian and american forces. Having said that, in this particular case, it was important to uphold a principle that existed in international or enormous that has existed internationally for decades, if not for the past century. Principlek it is a that the russians themselves have signed onto. This was not something this was not something this is not about regime change. The russians were warned in advance. We do not want to deprive them of the military actions or cut them out of a political to help determine syrias future. Putin understands that. The last thing in this where one of his clients were gassing innocent men, women and children. Host your thoughts on the headlines coming up this morning from the Washington Times . The Associated Press reports must choose between president assad and the United States. Issuing that Rex Tillerson issued an ultimatum. Groups, hezbollah and the battle leader of bishara alassad we cannot let this happen again. We want to relieve the Syrian People of russia. Russia could maintain its alliance with this group which we believe will not serve russias interests longerterm. Reaction . Guest quite apart from the substance of the statement, it is like so much of what has happened in the last week. Such a dramatic reversal from what we have come to expect from the trump administration. , even agordon has said week ago, they were suggesting was notsident assad really our problem and that he was in syria to stay and then they are bombing his military assets. Until recently, russia was viewed as a potentially vital partner in the fight against isis and now we have a challenge to the russians suggesting that their support for president assad is simply intolerable and if it continues, they will inevitably be in conflict with United States. Im not sure i disagree with those approaches dramaticare such swings from where the administration was only 10 days ago. Host philip wharton, your response . Guest yes, dramatic swings. It looks like they may be on the verge of the next dramatic swing russias operations with to challenging the operations. We are getting tough statements. It is time for russia to drop is not for sod and it longer twirled herbal and i worry that the new strategy depends on prying a russia away from president assad that they will fail as much as predecessors fail because we have been trying to do that for years. And it turns out that russia is deeply committed to president take a lott will more than a single set of airstrikes and a single airfield to back to get putin off his support. Host lets go to luke, a republican. Good morning. Caller this is a total mess. I am embarrassed. Russia is not going to back out. They are not going to back out. I hear this on tv but you cannot underestimate the enemy. Everyone says we have the rest we have the best military in the world. Host what do you want to see . We have lost luke. Michael, how are you . Host go ahead. Caller i would like to ask your guests, because they dont hear much conversation about this. But it is my understanding that only wheelers of selfdefense or those authorized by the Un Security Council are legal under International Law. The question is, everybody is talking about what donald trump did in ordering the missile attacks in syria. But every once in a while, you hear something where there is some country claiming that they are illegal, but the question is, what is the United States position . Guest it is fair to say that the United States doesnt have a clear basis in International Law for going after the regime. You can debate whether it is a case for going after isis. We dont have position we dont have permission of the syrian government. You can make a case about peace and security in the region and iraqis said isis in syria is a threat to them. So that would be a credible basis. Going after president assad is much thinner. And the International Defense of thathemical weapons is there is a Chemical Weapons Convention that is being violated by the Syrian Regime and you have to pin that on humanitarian concerns versus International Law. Host at the same time, there have been calls by the members of Congress Last year since last thursday on a debate in congress on the authorization of military force. Whether that should be on the table. Is that something trump should pursue . Guest i think you would be wise. The action hee took under his article to authority as commanderinchief specific threat that he sought to american interests in the region was probably valid and that is based on past president , other president s have taken that kind of action short of allout war without going to congress. But i think there is real value in the executive branch going to congress and getting by and having a debate amongst the American People about what our interests are there. And that under certain circumstances, the United States good agreement from both political branches of government to use force when necessary to defend american interests. Think this congress is ready now to make that when they were not back in 2013 . Guest i still think it is going to be difficult. The discussion with the congress tough because one has a sense and you get it from your callers, that the American People do not have the stomach for getting back involved in a major way in these kinds of middle eastern conflicts. Guest it is a tough sell and both members of congress are not clamoring for this vote. Because they dont want to take responsibility for it. But this is why obama went to congress in 2013. Nobody expected that 48 hours after the strike is when you run into problems. No one doubts that our military is capable of hitting armies when they go after them. The problem comes later. What if you have to use military force is again . Chemicalhey use weapons again . What if they retaliate on your people . That is when you would prefer to say look, go back and this is supported by congress and the American People. Host lets go to stafford, virginia, and independent. Caller hi, i had a question about the g7 rejecting the call on the section of syria and russia. I think american policies are confused at this time and nobody knows what is going on. And by just doing one blue to it just doing one unilateral attack we have lost the chances to put sanctions on russia and syria. Yes, i think there was Political Support widely spread by not only the g7 but Broad International community is. When you get in the position of communities and countries having to take action other than the United States, it always becomes difficult. Particularly if it involves going against the russians on economic sanctions. We already have them on ukraine. That would inevitably have some low back on the fragile european economies. So that may require more discussions on the broader question of sanctions. I dont believe weve necessarily lost the United States, we still have a broad array of economic sanctions that we might impose on syria, on the russians and particularly on the iranians as well, something we havent discussed. The pivotal role that the Iranian Revolutionary guard and they are shiite proxies from Lebanese Hezbollah and also afghanistan, pakistan and iraq there on the ground in the tens of thousands in syria, helping president assad wind this brutal war. They have been his primary backers. And no doubt, if the russians bear any complicity for this chemical weapons attack, the iranians even more so. And i think it is time, given irans wider behavior in the region, that the United States have a much greater focus in terms of economic sanctions and even in terms of hard power efforts against the iranians and began to push them back on their heels. Guest this is an area where the administration clearly has work to do before they will be able to Win International support. Ago, it seems like he was totally against military intervention for chemical weapons. And now, we have suddenly flipflopped to a new strategy that hasnt been clearly explained. There are trust problems with the administration. They are understaffed in the state department. And to suddenly expect other countries to salute and say, we are on board with the strategy, even though we dont know what it is and where it will go that shows that it will take more than just a set of airstrikes or one announcement. Therefore to do. Host we have 15 minutes left with our panel to take your calls and questions. In kentucky, a republican. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. Make the statement that president s for the last 70 years since the end of world war articlebeen violating one, section a clause 11 of the u. S. Constitution that says that congress only have the power to declare war and loving 60 missiles into a sovereign country is a declaration of war. On the platform of restoring law and order in this country. But if he is any man of his word, he should bite the bullet and take impeachment for violating the constitution. Host lets go to debbie. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. The previous caller actually asked my question. I was concerned how sanctions wouldt russia and iran affect their support of the assad regime. And i wanted to ask if maintaining the existing sanctions or increasing sanctions would diminish their ability to support the assad regime . Guest actually think economic sanctions are a powerful instrument of american foreignpolicy. It has been proven over the past decade. I do think that there is more that could be done with regards to sanctions here, oath against the russians and the syrians and iran. The triad that is so responsible for the tragedy in syria. All of them are incredibly further economic hits on the economy. Particular, asn a result of the sanctions over the ukraine. Oil, they are of beginning to hurt, over time. And i think everything we can do to continue increasing that pressure so long as they are not being cooperative in helping us try to achieve a political settlement in syria when they gauge when they engage in this type of activity where the people believe they had advanced warning that the syrians will be using this chemical weapon, that i think that you are to be prepared to increase in the rice on increasing the price on russia. It in aou do not do specific military confrontation, you have to use other instruments in your arsenal. Economic sanctions are useful against certainly theres in russia and it is a powerful tool. It depends on what youre trying to accomplish. Sanctions can be a tool to influence countries like russia and iran. But if you are trying to get them to back off their support for president assad and let their enemies when and in their case, except the principle of the regime change, which they hate, and except that in their view, enemies and extremists will come to power, and i think sanctions are going to fail. Silly me to think about what we are trying to accomplish. For years, we have been trying to accomplish getting the iranians and russians to act off their support for sod and for president assad and sanctions have not accomplish that. We need to be honest about what we think we can achieve. If you cant change your means significantly than you need to change her goal. Host a lot of people are thinking about what the goals are. Here is a column in the wall street journal. What comes after the syria strikes. York, a eric in new democrat. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I am pleased to get in on this discussion. I think i have a fundamental question. To try like both guests to answer. Wonder if we have learned anything over the decades of military practice, in terms of vietnam and onwards. Are and these rebels and the isis groups and say they are on uniform and they are merged in with the general civilian public how do you identify who the domy is and how in the World Military strategies even work . I know you guys are advisors and not battlefield experts but im confused about how it is an ongoing militaristic unending thing and i dont understand why maybe we should just apart from the whole region . I know we see a lot of videos with isis in black with flags but that isnt always the case. If the gas is released, maybe it was on the troops and there was Collateral Damage . For sure what factually did happen. Host we will take those questions. Guest it is an impossibly difficult problem we have been dealing with for years. Just like the previous caller with war and the constitution the war is no longer what it used to be. Where it is our enemies in uniforms between nationstates would meet on the battlefield and fight. This is much different and more complex. And in syria it is as complex as it has ever been ever. It isnt the regime versus a coherent opposition. The opposition itself is fragmented into hundreds of thousands of different groups, which all different have which all have different interests, which raise the questions about the regime change. I have no doubt that if the u. S. Set our mind to it, we could overthrow the president assad regime. We could do it. We didquestion is, if that, what would happen . Who would take over in damascus . The answer is probably not a unified, coherent, democratic position that we could work with. Between thestruggle different groups and the people returned to the United States and say ok, how are you going to stabilize things now . So this is at the core of the problem. Host to the question, why cant we just depart from the whole region why do we have to have solutions as the United States . Guest simply because the alternatives of not having the United States playing any kind of leadership role of organizing coalitions of civilized nations and creating some limited amount of stability in the International Community leads to much worse outcomes. We have seen over the past 15 years that there are real consequences to our actions and mistakes in foreignpolicy. Thereve also seen that are real consequences to in action and retrenching. And the United States is pulling back from the role that has traditionally played in the mideast. Host what is the worst example of that, in your mind . Syria is a bad example. They didnt completely withdraw from syria but there was a decision that the United States was not prepared to use direct military force to influence that situation in syria. A lot of people even in obamas cabinet, they advocated for a much more forward leaning posture early in the conflict to try to get on top of this and prevent the kind of disaster we have seen. But as a result of what is universally seen as the american pullback from the crisis in syria on the syria that we couldnt affect things in a good way, i think we have seen the greatest humanitarian tragedy and strategic strategy, if you take into account all of the refugee flows into europe and the destabilization that has resulted from that. Those are some of the consequences that you would see from a lack of american action. Host rob is a republican. Good morning. Doing . How are you guys my question to you guys is why does nobody talk about john mccains involvement with the 2013 gas attack and he happened to be there three days prior to the attack . And his attack, he was there a week before to meet with Syrian Rebels which we know now is isis . I really want to know why nobody is talking about that. Do you think the senator is involved . I want Philip Gordon to address that. Is there any evidence of that . Ive never seen any evidence of that. To be ahis seems repeated phenomenon in recent years is that whenever anything upe this happens, it opens the ground for an awful lot of conspiracy theories on the left without a lot of evidence to support that. Fact that people assembled together into a grand conspiracy that somehow, somebody in the United States is working and orchestrating things in a way to deceive the American Public is not what is actually happening. Guest there is evidence that the Syrian Regime did use chemical weapons. Host we go to zach, good morning. Caller there are a lot of components to this but first, i would like to say that it is a crazy conspiracy to think that president assad would kill children to gain some sort of strategic upper hand in this conflict. Thatold enough to remember Saddam Hussein was allegedly purchasing uranium from niger or Something Like that . Talk about economic destruction. Was very disastrous to the u. S. Economy. And the American People. And i am talking about me and you and everybody. This has to stop. This makes sense. Who are you going to put into syria . N mary poppins . This is insane. Who do you get who is better than president assad . Philip Hammond john hannah, go ahead. Why would president assad use weapons of chemical origin at this time . He wants guess is that to demoralizes population so that people will eventually give up or leave the country as they have been doing. And there are a lot of people that president assad, through this mass slaughter, is systematically trying to change the demographics in syria because he is a ruler of a minority regime in syria that is opposed by 50 or 60 of his population. Host the other question is, why now . It seems like from the outside he was gaining the advantage. Why would he do now why would he do that now . Guest you can oppose the iraq war and you can oppose military intervention without having to think there is a Conspiracy Theory about chemical weapons. I think it is easy to explain why he would use chemical weapons. He wants to terrorize his population and say, im in charge. Do not defy me. We know he has built up large stocks of chemical weapons for that purpose. He was also testing President Trump and the International Community. He is trying to pacify a region of his country that he doesnt control. He needs control of the opposition and some extremists. He doesnt have the manpower to go in their door to door to take care of that. So i think he wanted to send a message kill the terrorists with whatever means he could and the fact that it came early in terms presidency he knows that when he use them in 2013, there was international hullabaloo and obama ordered airstrikes even though we did not implement them and the rushes came and then russia came in and took chemical weapons out. So after donald trump seem to indicate he didnt want to get involved in syria, he wanted to test the proposition. What if i use chemical weapons and he lets me get away with it . It is a crazy Conspiracy Theory. You can believe that and grapple with the policies without while also opposing the war in syria. Host mike is in new jersey, and independent. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. Grant,rs ago, president he took a tour around the world and he said oh, ok, in europe, they are coming up and advancing themselves and their people. The middle came to east, he said, it is a lost cause. Do we learn . Should we let them burn themselves out . And you have two little children who are 6yearold they fight with each other when you bring youbrothers in two help, will have more violence. Host one more call from doug in california, a republican. Good morning. Caller yes, last night, charlie ford was very pessimistic about wouldnd of outcome that dispose of president assad and im curious of your take on that. With the longterm picture looks like . Host i will give you each a final minute. Agree, this is going to be very tough. I dont think the administration will allude to a strategy of forcible regime change. I think theyre looking after the defeat of isis and after hopefully we get some kind of alternative local governments in eastern syria, hopefully we will be at a position to go to the russians and talk about how to end the violence. In syria. Stop the slaughter and start moving toward some kind of political stability in that country. And eventually they will have to talk about the future of the sod. Ad i think that is conversation about president assad and the immediate people and his family who are so tied to the slaughter that their future is the subject that i think at some point in time, the russians and their interests they will be willing to have that discussion because i dont think they want to be weighed down by this mass killer. As far as pessimism to was getting rid of him. It took hundreds of thousands of american troops to remove a dictator. It andall of nato bombed he was finally overthrown. And president assad, unlike gaddafi, is backed by russia and iran and we need to be about the we need to be honest about the prospects of removing him. It isnt a nofly zone that is going to a large this dictator. If people really want to get rid of him, if they need to russia and iran. If it is that important than ok, lets do that. But lets not imagine there is an easy way to get rid of him. Callers point about the region and just walking away i dont think any of us, in any way underestimate the problems we face in the middle east. Ast walking away is not solution or in our interest. There is the risk of Nuclear Weapon proliferation. We have seen millions of refugees destabilize hundreds of thousands of people are being killed. Energy, oil and economics we have a lot at stake there. So we need to keep doing what we can for the region. Host i want to thank Philip Gordon and john hannah. Say a quick word briefly, i was asked to resign and i refuse. I will tell you i dont understand why that was such a big deal