bashar al assad. it sure appears that way. if you look at the target sets on both day, neither of these appear to be isis targets. you can t say the russians don t know what they re striking. they ve got access to syrian, iraqi and iranian intelligence. they know who s on the ground where. so when they launch these strikes, they know they re going after anti-regime rebels. i think they re just paying lip service to this isis thing. much like the turks did with the isis versus the pkk. repeat, paul, that reuters report that hundreds of iranian troops are in syria right now. they re ready to start a ground war, if you will, against bashar al assad s opponents, including u.s.-backed rebels, if you will, joining hezbollah fighter flps could be a real escalation of what s going on if the russian air force attacks from the air and these other elements attack from the ground. well, that s absolutely right, wolf. that could be really severe unintended consequences here.