but not enough to allow us to demand, necessarily, a complete replacement of the assad regime. maybe we can get him to go into exile and the family stay in place and share power down the road. that would take some goodie employee macy. jonathan: the bottom line, michael, the genie was out of the bottle but the crackdown has worked. assad is winning? guest: i m afraid so. i agree with your military analysis. it doesn t mean this is the final stage of the battle. and there are ways to imagine if the insurgents got a certain amount of weaponry, for example, they have not yet received or better communications or what have you, they could, in fact, mount a serious opposition but it would become close to all out civil war before they could defeat assad. so the syrian army is holding together well and the insurgents would have to rival the army in fighter power before they could do more than hold a few