The ruler of his country. It didnt last. He was only 23 years old when a coup was launched against him in july 1958. In that coup, he was murdered along with much of his family. July 1958. The monarchy was deposed. Nationalists in the Iraqi Military took over. They overthrew the iraqi monarchy. That didnt last either. Five years after they killed the king and the military took over, the military was overthrown as well or at least the faction of them that had been in charge. By then it was 1963, february 1963. The group that took over iraq then and ruled it for 40 years thereafter, that was the baath party. We think of Saddam Hussein as the personification of the baath party. He in fact, took over iraq in 1979. He ruled iraq in the name of the baath party for more than two decades. But the baath party itself, they took over iraq all the way back in 1963, which was basically the exact same time that the baath party also took over next door in syria. The baath party mounted their coup in baghdad on the 8th of march 1963. One month later, they mounted their coup in damascus as well in syria. The baath party took over in iraq in february. They took over in syria in march. In syria, as in iraq, thereafter they had a few different stops and starts in terms of what their new governance would look like. In terms of what their new leadership would look like. They had a couple more upheavals in terms of their leadership in syria. But by 1970 in syria, they had their leader for life. His name was Hafez Al Assad. Hafez al assad. He took over in 1970 and never gave up power. In iraq, saddam ruled for a long time, 24 years. Saddams rule in iraq only ended when the United States military invaded iraq and overthrew him, and then the occupied Iraqi Government executed saddam. That was in 2003. Next door in syria, Hafez Al Assad held on until he died on his own terms. He had a heart attack in the summer of 2000. And syria technically is not supposed to be a kingdom. They held an election to pick a successor to al assad, but there was only one candidate on the ballot, his son. He was the only one on the ballot, and it was illegal for anyone to run against him in that election so he got 99. 7 of the vote in 2000. And thats how he got power. Thats how we got Bashar Al Assad as the not quite king of syria. Its basically a dynastic dictatorship. He inherited it from his dad in 2000, after his dad had taken over in a military coup 30 years before. At the start of Bashar Al Assads second decade in power in 2011 when demonstrators around the arab world started demonstrating in the streets for relief from corruption, for real democracy, for a reform agenda that was different from country to country, but at heart it was for a relief from corrupt arbitrary rule by force. When the protests off the arab spring started sparking in 2010 and 2011 and 2012, every country handled it differently. In syria, Bashar Al Assad decided to deal with it with force. With massive force. The opposition that started with peaceful street protests in 2011 in syria, it quickly evolved from not just a protest movement, not just a street movement, it evolved into an armed resistance. It evolved into an armed opposition movement. Since then, syria has spent two, three, four, five, now six years sliding deeper and deeper and deeper into increasingly impossible, increasingly complex, catastrophic civil war. A half Million People killed. Half Million People. 5 Million People flung out of by taking refuge anywhere else in the world and Bashar Al Assad still in power. And russias propping him up. And iranians are propping him up, and the majority population of syria is sunni. Theyre never going to be okay again. If they ever were, they will never be okay again with being ruled by a nonsunni dictator who inherited the gig from his dad and then spent his own second decade in power slaughtering syrians by the hundreds of thousands. The solution to this is not rocket science. The solution to this is way more complicated than rocket science. Do you think our Current Administration is going to be the administration that comes up with the genius solution to this . That comes up with the answer . The new administration in our country released what they want to be seen as a situation roomtype photo from last night. What theyre going for obviously here is i think they want their version of this iconic shot during the bin laden raid. What we got from this white house was different because the Administration Last night was not headquartered at the white house in washington. They were, of course, at the president s paid membership resort in south florida. So their situation room photo, which they released, it sort of looks like a situation room photo, but if you look more closely at it, you see, well, its not really the same thing. For one it was taken at a function room at maralago where were told the president and his advisers were seated on chairs set aside for wedding receptions. You see how the chairs are . This is a photo they released of the first obvious caption when youre looking at this photo is, lesson one in how jared stays the favorite. Look what everybody else in the photo is doing. Theyre all staring at the left side of the photo while Jared Kushner gazes intently at his fatherinlaw. You want there to be a new job in the United States called crowned prince, this is how you will that job into existence. But its also a notable photo. The maralago situation room photo. Its also notable for whos there, whos in on that decision, that moment. In the real situation room photo, the bin laden situation room photo, theres the secretary of state, the National Security adviser, the Vice President , the defense secretary, theres the director of national intelligence, the cia chief, the chairman of the joint chiefs. You recognize these people. In the maralago photo, some of those same people with those same titles are there, but theres jared, the president s soninlaw. Theres also the top economic adviser to the president. Theres the white house spokesman back there. Theres other people we dont know at all, and sort of right next to the president , theres the treasury secretary and the secretary of commerce. Why are they there . We are told this is the situation room photo. This is the Critical Military briefing on a possible u. S. Military strike in syria. Why is the commerce secretary there . I dont know why wilbur ross is there. But wilbur ross does appear to have no idea what was going on around him at that moment. I have a little bit of tape to play for you. This is not on camera. Its just audio. A reporter asked the commerce secretary, wilbur ross, today what it was like to be right there with the president to be in that makeshift maralago situation room in this key moment. They asked him what he thought of what he witnessed. We know from the photo that wilbur ross, he definitely was there. He was right there, right in the middle of it. Its not clear to us as observers why he would have been there and hes making clear that he well, he seems to have misunderstood some key details about what was going on around him in that moment. Listen. In terms of the strikes themselves, its my understanding that they took out Something Like 20 of the entire Syrian Air Force. So it was huge not just in terms of number of planes, but relative to the scale of their air force. Commerce secretary wilbur ross under the impression that 20 of the entire Syrian Air Force was destroyed last night in this one u. S. Strike on a tertiary airfield. I dont think thats what happened. Secretary of state Rex Tillerson later tried to clarify it wasnt 20 of the air force. Maybe was 20 of one wing of the Syrian Air Force at was destroyed maybe . Maybe it was 20 of planes that were destroyed . Maybe it was 20 of some economic figure relevant to this strike . I dont know. But at least wilbur ross was right there at the president s side to help make this call, even if he doesnt really know what the call was even afterwards. What has changed in terms of u. S. Military involvement in the terrible intractable Syrian Civil War as of last night is a pretty specific thing. Last night was not the first time that the u. S. Military has shot tomahawk missiles into syria from u. S. Navy ships. This footage youre looking at is from 2014 when president obama ordered that 47 tomahawk missiles should be fired at fighters inside syria that were thought to be allied with al qaeda. These are the 2014 tomahawk strikes. The United States also led a coalition of arab nations in manned aircraft bombing raid in syria starting september 2014. The United States alone and along with other countries has continued bombing raids in syria for years now both with drones and with manned planes. Those air strikes have been targeting isis. Those u. S. Attacks inside syria continued right through the end of the Obama Administration and into the start of the new administration, too. None of that is new in terms of our u. S. Military involvement in the Syrian Civil War. What is new as of last night is that now were bombing both sides in that war. Previous u. S. Air strikes and even the casual commando raid targeted the Al Qaeda Affiliated fighters. Now the new administration has made the momentous decision to also target the Syrian Government as well, the Syrian Military. The forces of Bashar Al Assad. Whether you like this turn of events or not, its truly not clear why the u. S. Government has made that this change. Bashar al assad undoubtedly is a butcher with the blood of hundreds of thousands of people on his hands, as well as the ultimate responsibility for what has been the wholesale destruction of his own country. But hes been a butcher all this time. There are hundreds of thousands of people who have died in that war. The Syrian Government under Bashar Al Assad, they are operating a prison system thought to be like the death camp camps. It appears to be an industrialized human atrocity. This has been true all along. That has been true for years. And it does appear that Bashar Al Assad may have abused chemical weapons against his own civilian population again this week. But this president was emphatic after a much larger chemical weapons attack a few years ago. He was emphatic that that was no reason for the United States to get militarily involved whatsoever in the Syrian Civil War. I mean, if you didnt want to get involved, if you screamed and yelled and occasionally went to all caps emphasis, if you screamed and yelled about how stupid it would be to get involved after Bashar Al Assad killed 1,400 people with chemical weapons not that long ago, why would Bashar Al Assad killing 70 people with gas this week result in the new administration reversing its position on this war and getting in . And not just reversing its position from what the president had said when he was a private citizen in 2013. They have reversed their position, they are taking the exact opposite position from their own Foreign Policy position just last week. I think the status and the longer term status of president assad will be decided by the syrian people. Assads role in the future is uncertain. With the acts hes taken, it would seem there would be no role for him to govern the syrian people. First clip there was Rex Tillerson, secretary of state, last week. Second clip was Rex Tillerson, secretary of state, this week. 180degree change. And whether you like the new policy or you like the old one, we need to now try to figure out as americans what the cause was of that change. Was it just an impulsive thing from the new president . Was it an emotional thing . Was he secretly inclined to intervene all this time and he campaigned on the opposition opposite position until a few days ago as some sort of stealth move . Is it possible he was just ignorant about the Syrian Civil War before, even though he was taking public positions on them . Now that hes president , hes learning about what the Syrian Civil War is and hes finding now that he gets it his instincts are to start shooting missiles. In the last few days, the new administration has threatened that the United States will take unilateral action against north korea. Secretary of state putting out a strange threatening statement a few days ago saying, the United States has spoken enough about north korea. We have no further comment. Before the National Security adviser got fired, there was also his vague, strange threat against iran. As of today, we are officially putting iran on notice. Its still not at all clear what that meant, what that was about. Is the notice still active now that Michael Flynn has been fired . Could he deliver iran their notice through turkey since he was on the government payroll . But there will be no more speaking when it comes to north korea. Iran is on notice. The navy s. E. A. L. Raid on yemen that the president approved a week after he was in office. That was apparently approved after almost no deliberate process within the administration at all. That raid was a disaster, resulted in many civilian deaths and the death of a u. S. Navy s. E. A. L. And injuries to four other navy s. E. A. L. S. That raid also represented a significant circulation in military intervention by the u. S. Administration. Without a process to deliberate over that really at all. The new president apparently approved that raid and that major escalation in yemen at a dinner meeting that included jared, his soninlaw. This new presidency is where we got what appears to have been a truly disastrous u. S. Air raid in mosul, in iraq. An air raid that may have killed nearly 200 civilians after u. S. And allied forces specifically told the civilians in those neighborhoods that they should not leave and they should stay in their homes right before u. S. Planes then bombed those homes. And now, the new administration has launched 59 tomahawk missiles at the other side in the syrian war that we werent yet fighting, at the Syrian Military. Why were Steve Mnuchin and Jared Kushner and the chief of the Economic Council and wilbur ross, why were they all in the room while that decision was being made . What military action decision requires the chief of the economic advisers to be there, or wilbur ross . The u. S. Militarys been involved in the Syrian Civil War before. We have never before deliberately taken a combatant role against the Syrian Military. Who knows what will happen in response, if anything . Is the United States going to pursue a military strategy thats aimed at regime change in syria now . The administration would have said that was nuts a week ago. But today, who knows . And next week, who wants to bet . We dont understand how it is the policy changed 180 degrees from last week. How will we know its going to change 180 degrees to next week . The founders of our country tried to invest the power to make war in the United StatesCongress Instead of in the presidency. And they did that for a reason. It is hard to get a legislature from hundreds of elected officials from all over the country to vote to start a war. Congress wouldnt even take a vote on president obamas request to them to authorize military force in syria in 2013. Congress is structurally disinclined toward war, and the founders knew they would be. They knew that a deliberative body would be less likely to wage war recklessly as compared to one person who can make that kind of a decision alone. Over these past couple of generations, we have let that constitutional imperative slip. And now weve got in power a person with the warmaking powers of a modern american president who is also a person that is the subject of a counterintelligence investigation by the fbi because of the possibility that he colluded with a foreign power in order to become president. He also appears to have no mooring whatsoever in the daytoday basics of Foreign Policy. But he has just gotten the first good press of his young presidency, and he got it by turning on a dime doing something completely contrary to his stated Foreign Policy and deciding, what the heck, lets bomb something. Whether or not you think that was a good decision, how do you feel about his decisionmaking process for coming to it . Because the incentives here are about to get very, very perv