view on why it took so long. you would actually just stay and so every day that he remains in power is sort of a victory for us right now because it s in defiance of the united states. because they have been burned a little bit in libya. now the next steps, are they really urgently need to get some more international sanctions in place. probably what happened yesterday was not the ideal scenario for the obama administration. not just call for assaad to step down at the same time. so they real have you and especially russia which is still selling weapons to the regime is still selling sanctions. i ll put on my political hat which i wear most of the time anyway. how much of it obviously a ramping up of violence during ramadan in syria since august 1. i don t think the vacation had anything to do with it. i think there was actually a move in the works, it was trying to make sure that you have the saudis last week t king who s
why now call for him to step down? the tragedy is that you have to reach a critical mass in terms of what s happening on the ground, how many people have died, how outrageous is the behavior, and most importantly, how united is the international community, but of the things that distinguishes the bush administration on the obama administration. the obama has tried to rally any international players, whether it s the saudis, the europeans, the canadians, the european union, the united nations, in order to make sure that they all have enough pressure, because sanctions alone aren t going to bring down assaad. and mike, what are the next steps? what do the next steps look like here? and he essentially said the crackdown is over, obviously the situation on the ground suggests that s not true. what do we and what does the world community to robin s point do next? it was a ligslightly differe
president as sad to step down after months of violence in the country. this morning president obama called on assaad to step aside. and now the strongest set of sanctions to date targeting the syrian government. the transition to democracy in syria has begun and it s time for assaad to get out of the way. for his part, assad told the world his violent crackdown has have reportedly killed four protesters in the southern part of the country today. joining us now, a fellow at the u.s. institute of peace and the author of the new book, rock the casbah, also the director of the washington institute. why now? i think that s a question everyone s asking, five months, the obama administration has been monitoring, why now do it,
one of the most discrete diplomats in the world. warning syria to stop the killing machine, pull back or face chaos. that you have the europeans willing to take tough actions and the europeans are really the most important buyers of syrian oil. so this sanctions move will have an impact, but the europeans really are critical of the next step. mike, you mentioned, we were talking about next steps, do we have any sense, let s say assaad steps aside. do we have any sense of what syria looks like then? we have just seen the try to really get themselves organized. before we had all these different groups, different executive committees and so forth. and i think they realize at this point that that was not really building confidence in the international community that we could sort of have faith in what was going to happen after assaad. so the fact is, no, we don t know what s going to follow and a lot of people are very worry about what is going to follow.
the president will be in constant contact with h he ll also be working on that big jobs proposal that he ll be unveiling after labor day. and as you know, and as you just mentioned the republicans have really been hammering him for taking this vacation. and sarah palin on the airwaves calling on him to cancel his vacation, this is not a choice that he would nak. look the office of the presidency really travelled with mr. obama wherever he goes. and they also make the point that he s a husband and a father, and he needs to have some quality time with his family, and they don t think the american people will begrudge him at that time. the white house does need to think about appearances, they need to make it clear that this really is a working vacation for many obama, but, chris, presidents have been criticized for taking vacations throughout times so this is certainly a conversation we ll be having