but if you think back to the livey operation that -- libya operation. that did not begin with the goal of toppling toppling ghadafi. it was similar to the situation the president described last night. we think of benghazi now asa none must with the compound. the reason the president authorized intervention was to save innocents from the slaughter and that is why we were doing it. and then when happened? it evolved. we had a stake in the game. it turned into a long-running air campaign. there was a little bit of mission creep. it is not an air campaign now but we have a recent precedent for a humanitarian intervention turn nothing a longer running air campaign. can that achieve its goals? a cliche you hear a lot. you need a political solution in iraq. the warring parties have to make some sort of compromise. gwen: isn't what happened in libya and what is happening in iraq the same reason that barack obama stayed out of syria? >> yes. and the challenge with a limited air campaign or whenever you want to call it if the message to isis which is emboldened a

libya an interest? at what point does it become an immediate concern for the united states? we talk about ukraine but frankly it's a bigger concern for europe than the united states. iraq, at what point does that become a threat to the u.s. national security? if these countries aren't posing an immediate threat? gwen: except that you just cannot look away especially as the leader of the free world. >> we're at that stage where you cannot -- cannot look away. and we're nals a period when the american public is still allergic to direct intervention. in all of this list of conflicts you talked about has anyone raised in a serious way military intervention? the united states isn't even sending weaponry to the government of ukraine at this point. wen: talking about nonlethal aid. >> so a that point it's an old and sort of grim principle in diplomacy which is called ripeness that sometimes these things, the two sides in a con flict, gaza as an example has to exhaust each other and get to the point where neither side still thinks it has no ground to gain and i'm afraid we're in tha