the united states. >> arthel: why is that? >> well, this is the -- that's precisely my concern, is that our interest in the area is not at all clear. the president says we're going to be out of there, we're going to turn it over to somebody else. is somebody else iran? iran is no friend of the united states. and certainly russia's been an adversary. we know that russia's trying to reassert itself in the middle east to the detriment of the united states and our allies. the point i'm trying to make here is we need a coherent, strong strategy about what we're going to do now that isis is either on its heels or perhaps even defeated, at least on the ground. they're probably not defeated at least in ideology, which is another issue we have to deal with. and so what is the economic, the political, and the military strategy for that entire region, iraq, syria being the central pieces of it. we don't know what that is.