changer and will force to recalibrate even more so than he has with the red line on chemical weapons. let me take you back to last week. why do you even think assad would have gone through with this and laurvelged this chemical attack. if e he did do it, there s still some skepticism regarding this. it s clear sglsh do you think he did? the preponderance of the evidence suggests he did. it will be impossible to find out beyond a reasonable doubt ultimately. but let s assume he ordered it. i think it was act of arrogance. it was an act of overconfidence. it was a are action to trump administration statements the week prior to that saying they are accept iing assad s positio. i think he figured the russians are bombing the province. the u.s. has been bombing the province. so therefore, the world will look the other way if i do so.
core interests are so as we move forward, we get a sense of how our preparedness is going to fit. did i offer a less polite analysis? it was a waste of everyone s time. there was no new policy really sdusd. the president talked a lot about platitud platitudes. when you actually break down what the purpose of this was, i can t really find it. he s basically saying he was wrong on syria. he s saying we re going to help doubter terrorism operations around the world. we re already doing that. they don t want to talk about the deplorable conditions we see at the va. a long, long time after the president s red line on chemical weapons was crossed, is it too
syria. now he s going back on that and saying we ll help counterterrorism operations around the worm. we re already doing that and what seemed to me they would rather talk about their abysmal foreign policy up stead of the deplorable conditions we ve seen at the v.a. because that s better for them in this news psych senator lugar let me follow up on that, buck. more help he pledged more help for the syrian rebels today, a long, long time after the president s red line on chemical weapons was allegedly crossed. is the use of it timely or too little too late. it s too little, too late. comes at a time when the president recognizes that his doctrine of indecision which is i think the most polite way you could describe it isn t working. it s not helping. siree is spiraling completely out of control over 160,000 dead by the latest count and even the pentagon and the state department under hblg hillary clinton were saying we should do something, give them arms, maybe consider a no-fly zo
of communicating. i also wanted to ask you about what s been going on in syria, the reaction as well as today s speech at the world economic forum in switzerland by john kerry. this is a bit of kerry s speech today in switzerland defending the u.s. from a growing perception that we are retreating from the world. my own take is that it s rooted partly in our response to the crossing of the red line on chemical weapons and the decision not to take military action and not to be more forward leaning on arming the rebels. for a lot of complicated reasons but this was kerr y today. we ve seen torture at the hands of the assad regime. but this week we also saw the syrian regime and opposition sit at the same table, same room or separate tables, but in the same room for first time since the war began. now, obviously, we know this isn t going to be easy.
any one else in the world. i pointed out last week that we also have an unholy history with sarin gas and helped supply saddam hussein with necessary ingredient he could use it against his own people and iranian soldiers. in his column today, conservative george will quoted the same passage that we quoted here last week. about american officials knowing that saddam was going to use sarin. george will did not find room in his column today to mention that that happened under president ronald reagan. but he acknowledges that that history weakens our current claim to have always stood on the right side of the red line on chemical weapons. tonight, the president asked what would happen if we stood on our side of the red line and allowed assad to get away with using chemical weapons?