foreign affairs correspondent, host of andrea mitchell reports. ron allen is outside for us and we have the report from inside. chuck and andrea, we ve gotten an inside look at what these two men are going to be talking about, president obama and vladimir putin. who comes with the stronger hand to today s meeting? putin has the stronger hand when it comes to syria. he is laid the cards out on the table, and the fact is, president obama s syria policy a hasn t worked. we found out that the plan that he put into place, to train moderate rebels in syria, that were anti-isis and anti-assad, we got four of them fur our five left. not 400 or 500, from a $500 million program. this policy isn t working, obviously. putin comes in here with a bit of a stronger hand right now. i thought it was interesting,
we know that a majority of americans are opposed to military access, but president obama has said we must do something about syria or else america will appear weak to the rest of the world. we wondered how this was all playing out in syria and the rest of the middle east. we head to beirut where we find cnn international correspondent nic robertson. good morning, nic. how is the middle east? i m sure they re watching this drama unfold in the united states. what do they think? reporter: well, there s divided opinion. those that are pro-assad think this is a good time for diplomacy to play out. those that are anti-assad, think it is wrong. he should be accountable for all debts in the region and the majority of people would probably agree here that they re sort of relieved in way, because there was a possibility that
quickly without confirmation that chemical weapons have been used and the u.n. experts are on the ground and some five, six months when the last event happened. the u.n. inspectors are in there, the proximity to israel, now that the united states is openly helping the anti-assad, you can be sure there are sensors that can detect nerve agents in the atmosphere if they re being used. part of the caution is you want to prove it before you go to the u.n. and try to put additional pressure on the russians but part of the caution also is, kate, and unfortunately this is not a slap at the administration, just the cold, hard reality of the middle east you go to syria, you go to egypt, around that region and keep saying the same sentence, there are no good options. and that is unfortunately very true. i want to ask you before i let you go some presidential politics. candy crowley had a great sit-down with senator ted cruz and one topic that came up his dual citizenship, his birth certificat
returned from syria where he met with some rebel forces. he describes the situation there as very grim for president assad s opponent. thanks to increased weapons, hezbollah fighters, thanks to extremists coming in from iraq, the russian pouring weapons in, iranians revolutionary guard that we are seeing unfortunately, a battlefield situation where bashar assad now has the upper hand and it s tragic. while we sit by and watch. harris: conner powell following the story now from our middle east news room. the concerns that syria s bloody conflict will ignite a regional war are increasing with more than a dozen people having been killed as hezbollah guerrillas clashed with rebels in eastern lebanon this weekend. violence between pro and anti-assad groups has been on the rise in lebanon burg this is the largest outbreak of