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outrageous types of questions, and then the next question from the reporter is why are you talking so much about social issues? isn t it fair for journalists to ask the senator about his own words. the situation in syria turns deadly for more correspondents trying to cover the violent uprising there. breaking news into cnn just minutes ago. word that the two western journalists, including an american, have been killed in syria. will the dangers there choke off the flow of news from syria? plus, the sniping has already started over the movie game change even before it airs on hbo. you can actually see russia from land here in alaska. my god. what have we done? it wasn t my fault. i wasn t properly prepped. are sarah palin s people justified in going ballistic? i m howard kurtz, and this is reliable sources. the campaign debate over rick santorum and the exit tent to which he should or should not be talking about religion and social issues has quickly mo ....
Can t imagine president assad is going to be sending any kind of welcome party to damascus airport to greet the returning ambassador. why? because he went out of his way. he crossed the street, he went down the road to hamah, one of the seats of the uprising early on this year and stood shoulder to shoulder with the people who were protesting then peacefully against what has been taking place in that country. he was pulled out because the state department said they could no longer guarantee his safety. there were ugly scenes when he met an opposition leader in damascus. he s going back six weeks later, as you say. but the situation has deteriorated if anything since then. we have two very big fears, i think, stalking the syrian situation. one is that this descends into some kind of armed civil war, armed rebel groups taking on government forces. secondly perhaps even more scary is a prospect of this descending into sectarian strife. the sunni majority taking on the ....
Alowite sect of islam which is what president assad and his regime top brass are all drawn from. so a very, very dangerous situation. worth mentioning probably that hillary clinton has been meeting opposition leaders today. at a conference on afghanistan and the future of afghanistan. martin, turkey is now becoming the game changer. turkey going and joining the pressure against president assad. i was talking to other experts here today who say that it s going to be at least 18 months before we see real change, but that assad is eventually going to be forced out. well, it s clear that assad is struggling now, and the elements, the key question today is to what extent will elements of the syrian army defect. some have already begun defecting. will elements of the secret services in syria defect and that s also begun. so it s clearly a process of deterioration in syria for assad. for me i think the key point was ....
Seems to be, they just don t know. they re looking and learning the same as the rest of the world. it is such a dilemma for israel and for the rest of the world. joining us now, martin, john ray our nbc news correspondent here if tel aviv. john, you uniquely were in syria, one of the few if any western reporter whose got into syria just today. the administration decided to send our ambassador, robert ford, back to damascus to meet with opposition leaders. he left on october 22nd during the escalation of violence there. and he himself was being targeted. so despite criticism from republicans that the administration should not send an envoy to damascus, the view is within the administration that this is one way to support the opposition. indeed. well, the state department is saying tonight, incidentally, the ambassador flies out this evening from washington, what the state department is saying is this is is the best way to send a clear message that the united states stands with the s ....
Iran. thank you so much, shivly tahami and renon bergman. and now our veteran correspondent who has been in new york but here on a new location right now. martin, you ve seen so many changes, dramatic changes over the decades. at the same time we see stalemate on almost every front. and as you know better than anyone, so many revolutionary changes among the neighbors. egypt and syria and beyond that, what s happening in tunisia and yemen and elsewhere in the region. how does israel address the changing arab world? well you re right, andrea. stalemate at home in such contrast with what s happening to the rest of the middle east. look, israel needs now to first of all simply just come to terms with what s happening in the region around it. muslim fundamentalists have won the elections in all of the elections that have been held so far. and of course, in egypt we re ....