because of american action the russians would be enforcing both the fact that syria has declared it has chemical weapons and that syria is actually prepared to join the chemical weapons convention, and that the russia is prepared to take the responsibility along with other members of the security council to enforce it, we would think it was a miracle. do you believe russia? do you believe yes. and here s one reason i believe russia. they have reason to be scared of those chemical weapons, too. because the one thing those rebels hate in that country is russia at this point. next on the line after if they were to gain power and some extremist elements would gain control of it, after the alawites and christians the russians would be the target of these weapons. putin gets to both take the credit and also control these weapons. and ultimately destroy them. i don t mind if it takes months or even years. at this point is assad going to use those weapons again? with russia and iran now
that s what we re wrestling with. the assad government is truly terrible, obviously. but that is chaos in the middle east. and assad does have some support because the minorities, the kurds, the alawites and the christians all fear what would happen with a radical sunni takeover. also there s really bad actors on the sunni rebel side. we see them executing soldiers in cold blood. we see them beheading rival factions. so that s a lot of what is causing some of us to ask the question how will this work and how will it be contained? how will it make a bad situation better? well, is the president s strongest argument maybe, congressman, the negative, that if we don t act we send mess ams to places like iran, to rogue nations or terrorist organizations, go ahead and use chemical weapons because there are no consequences. that s a very compelling argument and that s why this is such a wrenching decision. i m glad the president came to the american people. it s a bad decision either way.
village near the capital, maaloula. can u.s. intervention help protect them? joining us on the telephone from the persian gulf, ambassador john bolton, former u.n. ambassador to the u.n., fox news contributor. ambassador, good morning. glad to be with you. even from a distance. exactly. i m going to talk to you in a moment about the view from there. first this new troubling event. victory over this christian town. what do we do about it? i think this demonstrates just how complex the civil war inside syria is. you know, historically, christians and alawites have supported the assad regime in part because they fear what would happen if the 70% sunni majority led by extremists were to take control in syria. it s not because bashar al assad protects the christians or the
minorities including christians and alawites and others. that is tough for them to do with these videos coming out. keep in mind, we don t know the nature of that video, whether or not it belongs to members of the free syrian army or some of the other extremist groups we were talking about. but believe it or not, that video is actually not the most disturbing video that s come out f of syria in the past two years. we ve seen some of the other rebel groups do some very horrendous things that definitely defy humans rights and raise concerns among the type of state they want to have in a post-assad era. because of that, it is a very difficult sell for the international community to completely support the free syrian army because it s uncertain what kind of values they re going to uphold once they actually do come into power. it s easy to say when they re in exile and outside the country to try to win that international support. once they have the reins of power, it s a whole different
empire until after world war i, when france and britain carved up the middle east between them. france took syria, and syria didn t gain independence until 1946. the next few decades were marked by coups and uprisings, until president bashar al assad s father seized power in 1970. syria is made up of a wide variety of ethnic groups, including ethnic kurds, arab christians, and even jews. 59% of the population are sunni muslim arabs. then there are the alawites that follow a sect of shiaism. the alawites make up less than 12% of the population, but they are the ruling class. this matters. president bashar al assad and his family are from that ethnic group. bashar s father managed to keep power by violently crushing any toepgs. he bombed the city of hama for