versus the iranian empire? not a fair match. dana: you haven t mentioned russia yet. how does that play into it? again, russia is a very interesting case. i mean, first of all, russia would like nothing more than to see a strategic set back for the united states in syria and in the middle east. and they are doing everything possible to make that happen. what struck me about tillerson s speech yesterday was that he was saying russia, we expect russia to support the geneva process and to help bring about a political settlement in syria that will see assad leave power. what? why in the world does tillerson or the united states think russia s gonna do that? assad s their guy. dana: right. why should russia get rid of him? dana: what about turkey then and the issue of the kurds? the president of turkey said he will kill american soldiers if they get in the way of turkish troops going after kurdish guerrilla, armed kur
the opposition and seeing assad leave power. so when you take military action, it s got to be more than a bow shot, as the president said yesterday. so if we re going to open the door to military action, let s have it have an effect, maybe not a decisive effect in militarily defeating assad, but creating conditions on the ground to enhance the prospect of the political solution that the administration wants. part of this process has to be putting china and russia on the defensive. what they re doing right now is they re the ones who were interpreting international norms, and they re okay with the use of chemical weapons, because they fear broader we have to say, no, when a leader not only kills 100,000 of his own people, but then gases his own people, that is beyond the pale, we have to respond, and either will