and other it s not going to happen. this is now the president, his red line. colonel, do you see any scenario which we don t help the islamic radical al qaeda connected rebels that are the likely successors if assad goes? if assad goes. that is one of the key things that worry me. assad is a butcher, he s a monster, he s a murderer. so is the opposition that we may end up helping. as horrible as assad is, he has kept his weapons his chemical weapons under control. he s not going to use them against the united states of america. if the assad regime crumbles, what happens? if his guard s run away to save their lives, he has these vast stockpiles of nuclear weapons. senator kerry was tap dancing, we may need ground troops.
some kind of retaliation and you re seeing that nervousness already in israel. people are already going to the government demanding their gas mask, they are concerned that if there is a strike against syria, syria will hit back against israel which of course is right next door. it s a broader concern for israel if assad goes, then what happens on his borders and the chaos that could ensue beyond this particular week and strike. to that point, we re hearing, so far we re talking strikes, but that s an important question. what does happen the next day after we have strikes? how can we be sure that assad, that will bring him in line? we may be looking at regime change at some point. we can t be sure and this is the most frightening to me question about this whole thing. can the united states undertake a limited incursion and then when it maybe doesn t achieve all its objectives, can we then say no further. we re not going any further.
know what the end game is. we ve done this before, three or four times before, and it s just not so easy to go in with some kind of surgical strike or something like that and the question is once we get in, how do we get out? what s our mission? this is a really complicated situation in syria. it is a civil war within a civil war, and even if assad goes, then there s going to be another civil war between sectarian groups that are already fighting amongst themselves. there s no clear leadership of the opposition, and the other piece is the chemical weapons. i don t know of any way to secure those chemical weapons without troops on the ground, and i don t think that s anything that we want to do, so i guess my feeling is we should be cautious. we keep learning, you can t just go in with a light touch. once you go in, you re committed
hezbollah is dependent on iran and stakes are high. whether hezbollah has been brought in in force because the assad regime is in trouble or because they see this as a potential game changing effect in the run-up to the peace negotiations scheduled to begin shortly, hard to tell. certainly momentum is in assad s favor. gregg: is that all the more reason why the united states needs to do whatever they can to hasten the demise of the assad regime. if assad goes, hezbollah could be degraded to the benefit of our middle eastern ally, israel. right, if syria and lebanon do not the problem is treating the syrian civil war as
rebels are made of different groups, we not exactly sure who it is. what is the future of syria? what should we watch for if assad goes. reporter: assad s tenure is tied to his general and army, if they stay loyal, it will drag out. there are probably wholesale units that will defect and the collapse will come relatively quickly. i believe what we are doing right now in reaching out to the rebels to establish a political structure that is inclusive because you want all the various factions in a future government post assad. if we don t do that, there is clear division and potential for civil war. f there is a revenge because of the oppressive regime that they have done for 35 years, similar to what we saw in iraq, then there is going to be real challenges. it is all in for the diplomats to work with the stakeholders