diplomats some time but it cannot solve this problem straight up. he says syrian president assad would have been long gone if it were not for iran s support. as it is, he has been able to recently turn around with some tactical successes in western syria thanks to the iranian support and the lebanese hezbollah support. lebanese hezbollah acting very much in concert with the orders out of tehran. and now they re achieving some operational successes there that we didn t see six months ago. he is angry that iraq is allowing iranian aircraft to deliver weapon to the regime. you served in iraq. you fought there. you know the sacrifices that americans made in, starting in 2003. and you know how much money we spent. hundreds of billions of dollars. to create an iraq. and the question is this. and then i want to get back to years. i can t knowing what you know now, the relationship between
the government in iraq and the iranians, was it worth it? well, history will have to sell on that. but you served there. i have. you have some thoughts about whether or not the men and women who fought this and american taxpayers who paid for it, was that war knowing what we know now, worth it? if iraq sitting at the geo strategic center of the middle east continues to mature in a democratic way, then i would say yes. still, he is cautious about getting involved militarily in syria. even the kind of no-fly zone that senator john mccain and others are proposing. mattis recalls the ten-year u.s. experience in iraq. otherwise, you re liable to invade a country, pull down a statue and then say now what do we do? by the way, the interview with general mattis, fascinating. we spent more than an hour talking about the entire region. all sorts of issues if you re really interested in what he has
point he doesn t concede, though he says he s ready to do the job and wouldn t have taken romney s offer and romney wouldn t have proposed him being the running mate were he not of the mind ryan could handle the job. we talked about foreign policy. he criticized the president saying the president was not bold enough, act enough and wasn t clear enough as things began to fall apart in syria. he was critical of the so-called u.s.-russian reset. said it hadn t worked. he is criticized for supporting mr. romney s plan and policy to crack down on china for its trade policies. in the past, mr. ryan has been reluctant,. heather. heather: all right. carl cameron live for us on the campaign trail in orlando. thank you. meanwhile, she joined her son to pitch the romney-ryan medicare plan. congressman ryan s mom, betty ryan, douglas. here is a look at her
welcomed, what kind of regime would follow? one dominated by radical islamists devoted to israel s destruction? is that the real threat here? look the opposition is divided. i haven t heard anybody yet that politically or militarily there is any structure to the opposition. after 189 months. what do intelligence agency and what do friends in europe tell us about who the leaders are of the opposition we can trust. let s get some names out on the table. let s get some organization that shows it s capable of maintaining itself and not allowing resources to be seized by al-qaeda or transferred to hezbollah and next-door lebanon. gregg: last question for you. what can be done to secure syria s chemical weapons stockpile which is vast so it doesn t fall into the wrong hands? i think that ought to be a
more than a million have fled. where do do you see this going? at this point. every education is that the conflict will simply grind on. let s go back to the basic strategic interests at stake here. russians and chinese to a lesser extent and iranians are backing the assad regime. they wanted to see it stay in power. iran wants to extend influence. russia because syria has their only naval base. than true for the last 18 months. it has never changed. it s not going to change. if assad falls, that will be a significant setback to russia and iran. that is why they are prepared to shed so much blood. gregg: is v puitd might ignoring and defying every effort by president obama and his administration? i think it s worse than that.