interest at stake. the regional partners are extremely interested in what go goes, principally pakistan, iran. i don t think it s going to be solved by another 4,000 or 5,000 troops. i think general nicholson is trying to not have it come apart on his watch. the problems in afghanistan have everything to do with this deeply cruel, ded naon. you mentioned syria. syria snapped back into our attention over the weekend. we shot down a syrian jet. the russians today have gotten involved, at least verbally, warning the united states about a line we should not cross. does any part of you fear a shooting war in syria over a mistake or a misunderstanding or
you know, the break-glass-here if you need this vote, and they will is have a few of those votes to get through, but i will tell you what the whip operations have told us that they need a big vote out of the senate. i agree with andrea, it is not as influential as it used to be, but having the big vote out of the senate certainly helps. it would hurt if it came out of a 65-35, and that would make the job harder. and do they have a sense at this point if it might be a big vote in the senate? i would be surprised if it is anywhere under 70 at this point, because i believe they can get to 75, but anything above that is a reach. i expect it to be, you know, it is interesting here that we could see more democrats in the senate support this deal, but more republicans over at the house. we will see if that is how it go goes, and that would be interesting dynamic and one reason to have that is that you have 23 democratic seats up for re-election and folks like claire mccaskill and jon test