they finish it? can they find some common ground in those 28 or so days? that to me is even more concerning. chris and david and, of course, the atlantic s steve clemons, thank you all for joining me. with us now for more on the foreign policy challenges and obstacles facing secretary kerry, dianne feinstein. thank you very much, senator, for being with us. you re welcome. your former colleague has left he has left one difficult job and taken on perhaps a far more difficult job. here he is traveling and facing a critical meeting with syria, and they are trying to use whatever leverage they can. should the president now reconsider the u.s. policy and do something more than nonlethal aid? should he consider a no-fly zone? not necessarily. i think what john kerry is doing is the right thing. he s getting his feet wet and fact finding on the ground. he is touching base with our
other critical aid. kerry took time in london today to call a key rebel leader and all but plead with him to show up. joining us for our daily fix chris calizza and managing editor of post politics.com. steve clemons, editor at large for the atlantic and david rothcoff, editor at large of fp group. welcome all. first to you, chris. this is the first trip by the new secretary of state, and already he s facing a real rebellion from the syrian rebels. they are saying no more international conferences. they, we are told, are really pressured by the fighters on the ground who are seeing horrendous loss of life and also some recent gains, and want to know why are you leaders going to fancy hotels and meeting at these summits in europe when we need help now? this is, andrea i m not telling you anything you don t know, but this meeting in rome was supposedly the centerpiece of what is sort of a whirlwind trip nine countries for secretary of state kerry, so
the rebels used every meeting as a potential negotiating ploy for what they wanted to extract from britain, france, and the united states, and you also have, i would say, greater diversity in the syrian opposition and more inconsistencies in the broad syrian opposition than you even had in libya. libya was not great. what we re seeing is standard fare. it s not anything unusual. i think where it goes is that john kerry is going to go in and, you know, basically offer a lot of resolve, perhaps more posturing, but the syrian knot continues to be something that i think that the president wants to remain from being deeply engaged in, and i don t think he is going to turn the switch on for heavy arms transfers to the opposition, so i suspect more of the same with a little bit more toughing rhetoric that assad needs to leave, but when it comes to what the syrian rebels most want, nothing really new. let me share, david, you know john kerry well. you all do. you ve watched him in the senate
for this job for which he has prepared all his life, this was john kerry on the plane talking without being on the record, but talking to us about just how it feels to now be the secretary of state and taking this trip. others on the plane talked to us about just how tough these issues are. syria foremost, but iran and others, just as difficult for him to try to untangle. david. i think that, you know, you become secretary of state, you think you re going to drive u.s. foreign policy. the reality is the rest of the world drives u.s. foreign policy, and he is seeing that here on his first trip. the fact that he is going to this meeting has been used as a negotiating point, and he is going to have to react to the initiatives of other people. i think in all likelihood the highest post that he has held is going to be rather humbling experience for him for a while. and i wanted to ask steve clemons also about chuck hagel because we expect a vote