There are huge, ungoverned spaces. al nusra, al qaeda, hezbollah, others, become more of a threat to our friends in the region and the region becomes much more of a conflagration. thank you, mr. secretary. secretary hagel and general dempsey, you made a number of statements throughout the spring, cautioning against intervention in the conflict in syria. why do you feel at this point that it s appropriate for us to take action? what s changed? senator, thank you. i ll let general dempsey respond for himself. well, first, very clear intelligence and evidence that that the assad regime used chemical weapons on its own people. so we are dealing with a new set of realities, based on facts.
A difficult winter and beyond. this is not going to be anything like a quick move to democracy and these countries. you can have large, ungoverned spaces where terrorists move in. it s a challenge for the united states. what is the largest threat to our national security? what is going on in afghanistan or what is occurring in yemen? pakistan is probably larger than any of them. afghanistan is a distraction. one thing about afghanistan, when you had the attacks on the hotel, it went back to vietnam. it s a reminder the people we are working with in afghanistan, given what they get out of pakistan, they will not be able to turn the corner. we continue to invest enormously there. howard dean? afghanistan, because of the
Do things that will inevitably protect the united states. it will prevent isis from establishing themselves in areas where they could proliferate and malign activity and threaten the homeland. is the fear here as they get squeezed in iraq, this is where they re going to end up? i think it s a very legitimate fear as they are squeezed in iraq and syria, that they will spread to those parts of the world where they can conduct their activities, training in particular and leadership in particular. you need to worry about yemen, you need to worry about north africa in order to ensure this doesn t become another hot bed of planning against the homeland. do you think that this could be explained better or do you buy that? i do, but i actually think exactly that, that the terrorists move to ungoverned spaces. so by definition then you don t have a legitimate government with control of the space and you re going to have these kinds of incidents. but i agree with david that we need to sa