strongly ahead. we must do everything we can to advance an international order. we are trendled by the solidarity of their alliances. because you have the right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned, it is right to step down from my position. bob scales is now chairman of the advisory board, gentleman, thank you for being with us. when you weren t named secretary of defense, you were a republican, the president was a democrat, and on the basics that jim mattic outlined in his letter of resignation, the
syria in the northeast. in addition to that, you know, there s an old saying, you don t get a seat at table unless you have skin in the game. by pulling american forces out of this region, we lose all political clout when finally, after a decade and a half of war, all the nations involved will go to geneva and go to the table, we ll just be an onlooker. and here s the thing, ali, what s the price? 2,200 mostly soldiers in this isolated enclave that are doing work that is far great than their numbers would suggest, ali. major bob scales, major general bob scales, thank you for your commentary on this. it is important that we understand what s going on in syria and what the right decision and what success looks like. thank you, sir. always good to see you. thanks, ali. coming up, the department of homeland security is set to start sending asylum seekers back to mexico to start to wait out the results of their asylum
again gases his own people. you have people outside of the administration saying while the administration is apparently showing resolve on the issue. what the people on the other side of pennsylvania avenue want to see is a fully coherent outcome for months to come. joining me the former commandant of war college, bob scales. bob, thanks for being with us. i m looking at a note that you sent earlier today. you say we keep saying that nobody s got a strategy. and you say the trump administration is not dissimilar from the strategy that the obama administration had on syria. what is the strategy you believe they have? well, the strategy is very clear, ali. it s very simple, western nations simply can t get involved in civil wars. whether it s the spanish civil war of the 30s. the russian civil war of the
congressman, welcome. thank you. we ll talk about the authorization but what s your authorization to ambassador haley s comments? well, she s certainly correct in all she said, however who called the security council meeting? russia. what s happened here, russia has taken the diplomatic initiative. and this is one of the real problems i have with the entire thing is, there is no strategic plan. there s nothing other than a military strike, as effective as it may be. beyond that, now russia has gained the upper hand in the discourse going forward. where are the ambassadors for the gulf states? where is the secretary of state? doesn t exist. all of the diplomatic initiative has been lost in this entire thing. and besides that, what s the next step? where do we go in syria? how do we deal with the complexities there. there is no strategic strategy. senator bob scales who is going to be on later.
tomorrow but certainly in years come when we have proof of record to be able to declare assad and his cronies as war criminals and take them to the international criminal court. beyond that, i don t have much hope for something like authorization of force or anything like that. bob scales, this is an interesting discussion because yesterday esaw jim mattis going to the white house. and after president trump s tweets we thought we might have been in the final stages of the plannering to for an attack. it seems whether it is jim mattis or someone else someone has gotten into the president s ears and said hold on, slow down, we need more anna target list, we need a strategy because an attack in syria may lead into something more serious. two elements. the delay of the military strike has to do with deacon flick. a strike like this in a complex medium like western syria is incredibly complex.