and, now, like we did toward the beginning of this conflict we are seeing israel get involved here, as well and this should be very concerning to the u.s. government because as we have sat on the side lines this has had a spill over effect in the region and could spark a broader conflict. shepard: i read over the weekend that the opposition forces, those opposed to the government in bashar al-assad have signed an agreement to get together and maybe work together in a more organized way, is there anything to that that might help? guest: it remains to be seen. they have signed an agreement to get together and now the head of the new body is campaigning to be recognized as the head of the government in waiting. we have seen this, before, before what has happened is the coalitions have fall were apart, because of infighting, but if this could hold together, it is one of the key things which could break this stalemate that we are seeing in syria but there is a lot more to be done. shepar
actual bullets is thin. shepard: thank you from jerusalem. now bringing in an expert on the middle east, the managing director of the washington institute and former senior director from the national security council. michael, you hate to see this happening. guest: you do and in a way we will not necessarily see more of this. it seems what israel is trying to do is establish deterrence by ensuring that any stray shells that come into israel get a response and that deters anyone inside syria, whether it is the army or whether it is jihadists or anyone else from thinking they can preach this border. shepard: regional savings is something we have been concerned about for a year. guest: we have and we have seen it happening, we have seen attacks from syria into turkey, attacks from syria into lebanon,
connected to developing nuclear bombs either now or a few years ago. a senior official from the united states told the council earlier this week an apparent cleanup was already underway at that tpa sit. it added a lot more complexity to this meeting. michael sing is a former eastern director of middle eastern affairs, he s currently managing director for the washington institute of middle eastern policy. grad to have you with us. this month was described as the witching hour if you will for iran and the united states. this month was going to determine or provide key insights on the way forward with iran. is that still the case, or is the timeline being moved? obviously we ve heard that a lot, haven t we over the years, that this issue is coming to a head. i think that now there is a sense that this issue has picked up speed, has picked up urgency for a couple of reasons. one is obviously iran s nuclear program has continued to make dramatic progress for the past couple of years, and
students, people on the street that they were, in his opinion, very proamerican. it brought the question about how much light there is between the regime and the people that are inside the country. of course we have to consider all factors when we consider our policy, michael. what do you think about that? is the regime very much the minority in the country? i think this is incredibly important, jenna, and i think yes is the answer. that we and the iranian people have essentially the same problem, and that s the iranian regime. it can t be stressed enough that america s problem is not with iranian people or with iran broadly but with the very narrow ruling click that is at the top of this country that is douged lee pursuing not only a nuclear program ahh terrorism. you ll see the regime is not very popular inside iran. support for the united states which has historically existed among the iranian people does appear to be going down according to more recent polling. i think that s in
actual construction of an atomic bomb. does that mean that an israeli military strike on iran s nuclear facilities would be postponed? michael sing is the former senior director of middle eastern affairs at the national security council. michael, what is the specific meaning of this conclusion that the iranians on the u.s. have come to about iran and its nuclear ambitions? well, jon for a longtime now the u.s. conclusion has been that we don t have sufficient evidence to say definitively that iran is putting together a nuclear weapon. that is very different jon from saying that we have concluded that iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon. there are always intelligence gaps that make definitive conclusions difficult. if luke at iran s nuclear program and all the things they are doing there is really no other plausible conclusion is that they want to at least leave open the possibility of having a nuclear weapon stphaot fact that they have put so many of these facilities underground and