if we were to do something like what we did in libya, to try to give some arms support, i don't know because i haven't done any briefings whether there's sufficient armed opposition in syria to prevail. and number two, if we did it on our own, we would almost guarantee their failure because it would look like our thing. so i know this is really frustrating. but we're in this place with syria now where i was with bosnia in 1993 and 1994. where it took us two years, i was ready to go into bosnia in '93, but i was determined not to go alone, bosnia was a part of europe and i had to persuade the other european countries to go with us. >> what do you think about russia who seems to be blocking in that area. >> what they should be thinking about is what this does to them with their own muslim minority in their southern underbelly in russia. and i think we just have to keep working there. because if -- it's all very unpredictable. but this level of -- they'll go along with the peace plan and then if they want to kill a bunch of people, they'll just go do it? >> can we do it without assaad?

it's clear syria is unlikely to turn into another libya. involving western military action. in the first place, russia will probably block it at the u.n. security council. but even without russia, there's no appetite for intervention. syria is a well armed state in a volatile region. and all-out war would involve its neighbors and western powers are distracted. the united states, the presidential election, europeans with the euro crisis and all of them worried about withdrawing from afghanistan. in paris tonight, president putin was digging in his heels. refusing to consider sanctions on syria and pointing out opposition fighters are also killing people. and the u.n. peace plan, he says, is still worth backing. bridget kendall, bbc news. >> for a closer look at russia's pivotal role in this crisis i spoke earlier with matthew reginsky, deputy director of the program for international peace. over the course of the last week, the more people i speak to about syria, they tend to be saying the best chance we have of avoiding total civil war in syria is to get the russians to put

because libya has oil and syria doesn't? >> it is part of the decision of a great power. this behave hypocritically. the secretary of the state and the president would say the same thing. there is probably more we can do. we could push the turksdeeson a assistance, armed assistance to the opposition. before we consider an ill-advised, ill-thought through half measure which involves american military intervention, we need to understand the consequences and the costs to us. if you break it and paul was right, you are responsible for it. we are just coming out of the two longest wars in american history. i looked at the job numbers today. this is a president with a domestic, huge domestic problem. the last thing he needs now is to get involved in an inbroeg leo and fail. >> you see zero prospects before the election. the modest steps, maybe arm the opposition and create more safe zones in cooperation with the turks and the arab zones? >> it is not pretty but frankly under the circumstances, i am not sure there is all that much he can do. under the circumstances, as tragic as

we didn't know who they were either. >> we have seen some of the armed smuggling take place out of libya and into the lie. i think we need to continue to put the pressure on the russians. let's face it, syria is supported dramatically by the russians and we need to move the russians off of that support as well. >> senator lugar, i have less than a minute and i have to ask you, what's next for richard lugar after a long distinguished senate career. you are one of the president's favorite republicans which probably didn't help new your primary race. would you consider if the president is re-elected a position in his administration say in diplomacy or foreign policy? >> i think my role is going to be outside of government. i look forward to opportunities but i'm not going tole think about it for three or four months because essentially i have got work to do for seven months. we've been talking about what we ought to be doing back and forth across the aisle in the senate now to help americans, the people i want to serve. there's where my preoccupation is going to be. >> senator lugar, senato

syria is roughly one-tenth the size of libya, but with three times as many people. perhaps for this reason the syrian rebels have not been able to take control of any significant part of that country. the geopolitics of military intervention are also unattractive. in egypt and even in libya all major regional powers, world powers were on the side of dislodging the regime or at least passively accepting that it would happen. in syria that's not the case. iran and russia have both maintained strong ties to the assad regime, so were the western powers to intervene, it would xwiblg become a proxy struggle with great power funded militias on both sides. that would result in a long protracted civil war with civilian casualties that would dwarf the current numbers. think of the lebanese civil war of the 1980s that lasted a decade, killed over 150,000 people and displaced over a million. the syrian regime has stayed intact. there have been no major defections from the army, intelligence service, or business community. why? well, the regime is a shiite sect that represents a

syria will resemble libya and bashar's fate could end up like moammar gadhafi. he could be flushed out of a spider hole, flushed out of a drainage pipe exactly like gadhafi was. >> but what will it take for him to get into that spider hole? we were talking about the numbers, the opposition numbers. they're strong. are they powerful enough? >> well, this is the tragedy of syria. it's a stalemate, if you will, between i actually describe it in this book i wrote about syria, between an irresistible force, the opposition of the people, the fury of the people, the rebellion of a proud people, and an immovable object, which is this regime of bashar al assad. it's basically a stalemate. unless the international community intervenes and does the right thing, i think we will see more of the same. when we say the international community we really have to talk about the united states, the obama administration. thus far the obama administration has refused to tilt the balance. >> so if the obama administration does nothing, then we continue to see these mass killings? we co

and in news from libya, a group of militia fighters blocked air traffic. they demanded the release of one of their leaders. thirty militia members were arrested. in denmark, a group of men planning revenge for a cartoon of muhammed face charges of a terrorist attack. the newspaper that apologized has apologizedd them for any offense. >> today, a danis court convicted four men of a terrorist plot, and they were given 12 years each. they planned a shooting spree in copenhagen. the evidence was strong. weapons were found and the conversations were intercepted by swedish intelligence. the act was considered deeply offensive by muslims. the cartoons were published in 2005. in a separate plot from 2010, a somali man tried to kill the cartoonist. the men who were driven in were from north african origin. edish of them sweedis citizens. prosecutors said they intended to take hostage and kill those in the office. three of them were picked up in a suburb of the danish capital. also found were 100 runs of ammunition and plastic handcuffs. this was not the only plot.

just people sense. >>> libya's former spy chief goes on trial. he was a member of gadhafi's inner circle. the first official in the former regime to have answered for the attacks against civilians in last year's uprising that toppled gadhafi. nic robertson is joining us by phone. tell us the role that he played here, how important a figure was he? >> reporter: he's a figure who was the spy chief for the last two years of gadhafi's world, a former libyan representative to the u.n., he's not seen as somebody who's got a lot of blood on his hands himself but by association with gadhafi. but today he was charged with crimes that could carry the death penalty. he was charged with trying to insight civil war and also for killing protesters. very serious charges. >> what do they hope to learn from him? is he one of those figures, i understand he is an intelligence figure, is he somebody they can get to pin some of the crimes on some of the others? >> reporter: the government here believes that two things, i mean one, they believe they have to get the tr

in syria, it's a country 10% the size of libya. three times as many people. the rebels have had no place to hide, no territory to secure. they kol really almost 2340 part of the country, no significant part of the country. so our outside intervention becomes much more kochly kated. becomes much more difficult. so there's a military complication, but perhaps the biggest reason is syria would then become, if you were to intervene, an arena for a huge kind of global civil war. the russians, the iranians would fund the syrian government, the saudis and the turks. if you can think back to lebanon, the civil war of the 1970s and '80s killed almost 150, 200,000 people, displaced a million people. it's not far fetched to suggest that something like that could happen in syria. >> and so quickly on this topic and then of course i want to switch gear, what is the right path? it's hard to stand by and watch this violence and the killing continue, fareed. >> absolutely. it's horrific violence and we should have as a goal a transition, the ouster of this regime. there's tw

colonel gaddafi's former intelligence chief has gone on trial in libya. he faces a long list of charges, in quoting ordering killings -- including ordering killings last year. he denies the charges. today u.s. officials confirmed top al-qaeda operative abu yahya al-libi was killed. his death is being characterized as a major blow to the organization. for more on this, i was joined by a senior political scientist and author of "hunting in the shadows." thank you for joining us. how significant is this? >> it is significant for al- qaeda in pakistan. he served as the gatekeeper. he had a very important role in helping to communicate on the field in iraq and somalia. his death does make it more difficult for the pakistan leadership to communicate on the field. >> the pakistan government says these strikes are illegal. are they? >> the challenge today is that fighting in previous years and decades has been between armies in single country's. al-qaeda is not an organization that fights in one area. its globally. it has elements in our range of areas. it is leg

libya in particular. so he had a good network of individuals from al qaeda and the islamic north africa, yemen and somalia. there are some potential individuals who might be able to fill that plot. al qaeda has after these drone strikes pushed up individuals. but i think what we're seeing is the al qaeda structure in pakistan has definitely been weakened by the strike. >> brown: do we know or can we know how he was targeted in a drone strike or where the information would come from? >> no, it's not entirely clear in this particular case. in many cases with drone strikes, one collects information from a variety of means. signals intelligence, human intelligence. what looks to be the case though based on the pattern of drone strikes is that the u.s. and a range of other organizations have increasingly penetrated where al qaeda sits in pakistan. that can not bode well for al qaeda because it's losing its support network there. >> brown: these drone strikes continue to be highly contentious and vehemently opp

what worked in libya isn't working in syria. the geography's different, the problem hasn't been tried but no one will dare try it because in libya, you could deal with this remotely by finding the libyan forces out in the desert and bombing them. in syria, this is all taking place inside cities. you can't use remote air power without causing terrific casualties and no one wants to take the risk of getting in the midst of the civil war. so there are some things for which the light footprint strategy works and there are others which is not well suited. >> rose: well but there are people who worry about the syrian policy if the administration and others do nothing, the things they fear most eventually happen. >> that's right. and that's the big concern here. so you know, we've got a strategy right now that is good for keeping terrorists off balance and may be good at slowing down countries seeking unconventional weapons. it does not do a whole lot for changing societies. remember, it was just a few years ago we would sit at this ta

is the stability of libya still in question? >> the stability of libya is very much in question. look, it's a big country. people often forget that. just to give you a -- remind people, it's 10 times the size of syria with 1/3 the population. so gangs can take refuge in vast swaths of the dez several. and the government of libya never had a powerful army. gadhafi never wanted to build a very large army because he feared it would depose him. he kept tribes warring against each other. that makes for a very weak state. in libya, one of the great challenges is not just regime change, not just nation building but really state building. can they build some kind of an organization that can hold this place together? >> i wanted to talk about your upcoming special on immigration. you spoke to one of the key contributors to arizona's controversial illegal immigration law. very timely you're talking about it because we're waiting for the supreme court to rule on some of that law's key provisions. give me some of your conversation with the secretary of state chris kobak. >> he's a very smart

as it concerns libya, that was nato. we had a canadian commander in charge of everything in libya. with bin laden, great. i think it's great that he gave the call to go in and use the navy s.e.a.l.s and capture osama bin laden. he's always going to go down in the history books as that having happened on his watch. he shares credit with george bush on that because there's no way he would have been able to go capture osama bin laden had it not been for the infrastructure put in place by the previous administration. that's a fact. we can agree whether or not he would have used s.e.a.l. team 6 or another manner, but the fact remains that infrastructure was put in place by the bush administration. >> let me bring in ben. syria is a real quagmire. nothing like anything else we've seen so far. what do you think the smart thing for obama to do is? >> i think rumsfeld did have a point, that all of this talk of sanctions does not seem to be effective. the choice obama faces is whether to intervene militarily. i don't think anybody is saying send in the marines. >> he can't do that because yo

the next step would be to move as they did in libya. >> the u.n. would think what about sanctions? >> well, sanctions right now are one of the only things they can do. there was a briefing yesterday by the treasury department saying that the world community needs to take even stronger sanctions and that they would argue they are working. assad, according to who you talk to, has spent down half his reserves. what they are trying to do is peel away people who are near him, to support him, to give him the idea their future is very bleak if they stick with assad. that all still though is theoretical because there aren't any signs that anyone is peeling away. >> jill dougherty thank you so much, from washington. >>> more from secretary of state clinton and what she says. she says the existing sanctions on syria are having an impact. businesses are cutting their ties to the region. senior syrian leaders have had their funds frozen and travel curtailed. >>> nobody likes a dusty submarine, but the u.s. navy want onto expect its fleet of vacuum cleaners. the portsmouth naval ship yard says

i think the other big example was his decision to, quote, lead from behind in libya where the argument was made that it was a humanitarian effort and, of course, it lasted much longer than it would have lasted had they said at the outset that gadhafi would be gone when it's over. >> so how weak can a president be when he ordered the hit on osama bin laden and he took him out? only today we saw another senior al qaeda member, abu yahya al libi yesterday got taken out. this is a series of victories president obama has had using predominantly in this case drone attacks where there is no loss of life to american troops. it's a very different way of going about taking out the bad guys. there are lots of people who say this is not a sign of weakness by president obama, it is a more sophisticated and smarter way of deploying the american military than the one that you and george bush deployed. >> well, you keep saying i said he's the weakest and i have said once and i'll say one more time only that i was asked a question. in my adult life if you look at the presidents, how would you rank them

situation that the case for mail tear action now is harder to make than it was in r wanda or it was in libya or in bosnia, for that matter. it's a very difficult thing, but when they have a coalescing of the opposition forces which will make it look like there's an achievable force option, but i don't think we're there yet. i'm sure they're looking at all of the things and contingency plans and looking at it, but assad ought to go, but it's hard when the russians lock you in action and continue to supply arms. that's why hillary's still working on that on this trip. >> more of the interview coming up. the former president also speaks about his own health. new information on what he shares about what he's eating and characteristics he thinks he's passed on to his daughter chelsea who is here at the clinton global initiative. that part of the interview will air later this hour. >>> also, what about mitt romney's platform? does what does the president have to say about that? we'll get reaction from what we heard of the former president from the senior adviser from the romney campaign. he's stan

that syria is not libya. it will not implode, but x load? >> >> yes, -- but exploded? >> yes, that is the estimation of not just kofi annan, but other leaders. that is why there's so much concern about syria. it is not just a question of syria falling into civil war, but a question of a regional crisis. we have heard a lot of grim assessment of the situation on the ground. we heard an acknowledgement from kofi annan that his peace plan is not being implemented and their need to be steps taken to press the government and if that is not going to work, then we need to look at other options. but we have very little detail of what the other options or belittle steps -- bolder steps would be. the secretary-general has come out and said that they love the security council to decide what to do next. the have no information as to what that might be. >> what else did they say about this contact group that james mentioned in his report? >> according to diplomats in the security council, mr. kofi annan did not raise it with the council. but he did raise it with journalists afterwa

he said there were significant differences in libya and syria. the opposition in libya was very well organized unlike the opposition in syria and many made this point. listen. >> this is not like libya where there are vast stretches of land that you could bomb opposition forces in civilians. >> what do you make of that argument that these are different situations where the u.s. would stay away from syria and i have to disagree with the former president and both in 1995 and particularly in kosovo in 1999 and belgrade for something like 11 weeks we had 30,000 sorties and we finally broke milosevic and to have the former president utter these kinds of statements, he's covering up for the obama administration and he's covering up for his wife and this is just a service to the obama administration. it has no intellectual or political merit and let's remember one thing. all of the things that are now being said about syria were also said about libya and the opposition was divided and we don't know where they were and they're penetrated by islamists and

one is the sheer strength of syria's armed forces, its military capability, greater than libya's for example. there's no political will behind the military option, reflecting the public mood against another war, particularly in the united states. major powers are left clinging to kofi annan's plan, which he concedes is not being implemented. today, he seemed tired and dispirited. after discussing ways to salvage his peace plan with the american secretary of state -- >> some say the plan might be dead. is the problem the plan or implementation? if it is implementation, how do we get action on that? what other options do we have? >> the international committee of the red cross now says a million ana ha in syria need aid because of the conflict. the report more and more driven from their homes amid shortages of food, medical care, and shelter. bbc news. >> among the bbc journalists who spent a lot of time reporting on the situation inside syria is our middle east correspondent eastpaul wood. his reports have offered a rare view into this conflict, and earlier, he joined me here in the s

>> i think that's partly because libya took much longer than expected. that people don't have a stomach for syria. i think people thought with the nato air strikes in libya, gadhafi would fold quickly and then, of course, it dragged on for months and months. the anticipation is that syria would be much, much more difficult a conflict to get involved in. >> you have said that the u.s., you believe, is hiding behind russia and china, which we know both russia and china are against sanctions being imposed on syria. what do you mean by the u.s. hiding behind those two? >> i think in the past the u.s. has not waited for security council approval. the u.s. has been willing to argument outside the security council. we did this in -- not only the bush administration in iraq but the clinton administration in kosovo in the former yugoslavia. i think the russians know as well enough to know if we're serious, the choice we give them is that either they support us in the security council or not, but we're going to go in, and the fact that we are, you know, claiming t

they said the same thing about libya. they said the same thing about other conflicts that have gone on. these people have the same hopes and dreams and aspirations that we do, and it is an abrogation of our leadership and, frankly, shameful that we're not helping them. >> senator, i can't let you go without a political question. something that governor romney said on thursday caught our ear. here is what he said. >> he says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. did he not get the message of wisconsin? the american people did. it's time for us to cut back on government and help the american people. >> i actually think that was probably on friday, but nonetheless, do you think that the message of wisconsin, senator, was that the american people don't want more firemen, more policemen, or more teachers? >> no, i think they want an adequate amount in order to fulfill their public service requirements and we all depend on them and love and respect them, but we also know that there is a significant problem with t

. >>> in libya, a lot going on there. the british embassy first of all says that everyone in a diplomatic convoy is accounted for after the convoy was attacked today in the eastern city of benghazi, and you may remember that benghazi was the center of the uprising that toppled moammar gadhafi, but this is the latest in the series of clashes in libya, and worrying trend. a lot of the people are wlaming islamist and blaming tribal rivalries and now we are joined by tim list who is here to talk about this. tim, so many clashes, and the one in the u.s. consulate mission in benghazi, and the clash between the militias that overtook colonel gadhafi and seems a lack and loss of central government. what is your read? >> i don't think the central government had any control. they were placeholders and not government. their mission is to sheppard in a new government, and the elections that were due to take this place month will be in july to push the process on, but the nastional transmission process s to help that along. there is a

and its allies should establish a no fly zone, sort of like in libya. the new u.n. report today says the regime is using children as anhuman sh tor kids whose parents are suspected dissidents. the u.n. peace-keeping chief has dubbed the conflict now formally a civil war. >>> and there is some good news tonight, though, on amy copeland, the 24-year-old who has been battling flesh-eating bacteria for more than a month. outfront has learned amy has been upgraded from critical to serious condition at a georgia hospital. she lost her hands, part of her abdomen, one of her legs and remaining foot in an effort to ballots the bacteria. but she started breathing and speaking on her own. >>> in north dakota today, voters are considering a proposal to get rid of property taxes. if the measure passes, north dakota would be the first state to get rid of proximates. pretty big bold move. according to the tax foundation, the state would lose $800 million in revenue about but north dakota kind of have a special position right now. they are the second larkest oil producing state in

con sue late in libya last week. they said the fighters planted an explosive in the wall which then went off injuring one person. >>> as far back as i can remember i always wanted to be a gangster. the man who inspired goodfella has died henry hill was a new york mafia associate from the '60s through the '80s. he lived for a time in the witness protection program. >>> the man hunt is over for the man wanted for the killing of three people including two former auburn football players. he turned himself in just last night at federal courthouse in montgomery. >> mr. leonard was charged with three counts of capital murder. two count offense assault. he will be processed into jail and held there for a while. >> he's accused of opening fire after a fight over a woman at a pool party. the current auburn player was among those wounded. >>> a deadly day for shiites in iraq. many of them were headed to a shrine for saturday observance. >>> two music greats are being honored on stands issues in the u.s. miles davis in france wh

our war in libya we were not upset to see that war end. it was in 2003 far after the executive order. we specifically tried to start the war by killing hussein. >> what about the issue of retaliation? let's say we do kill assad, what does syria do to us? we wouldn't appreciate it if they did it to us. they lack the power. is it okay to kill assad because question? >> no. my point was, to raise the question of why we would be concerned about retaliation but not the concern about retaliation in the case of, let's, say, bombing in order to try to overthrow assad. in both cases seem to me the fear of retaliation is quite low. syria is not in a position to retaliate for humanitarian bombing. >> this is ultimately the point you get to toward the end of your piece which is, if the u.s. were to kill assad, what does that get it? you write it might not do so good. kill assad and some brother, cousin or other general might take over where he left off. the conclusion of your article is what? don't bother killing him. >> why it's publicly acceptable i

is not at all syria, but i remember, we covered libya and the concern was, you know, who are these -- who is the opposition? if we do get involved, you know, who do we back? these are not necessarily nice folks, the rebels. who do we back, what do we do? >> first of all, you're absolutely right. not all the rebels are nice folks and not many of them have ever read the federalist papers. the key, though, again, is time. so far, according to intelligence sources i've been in touch with, here and abroad, there have only been hundreds of jihadists that have moved from other countries into syria, as opposed to the -- you know, the hundreds of thousands of opposition forces in general and the tens of thousands that are in the armed opposition. just hundreds of jihadists. a year from now, 18 months from now, those hundreds -- >> could turn into two hundred of thousands. >> so if we want to limit the danger of this becoming a jihadist successor regime, then we have to speed up the process of change. >> but you have to be more specific when we say change. are you saying we do go in, we do bac

we just need to arm and equip these people, the same way we did in libya. >> woodruff: i asked because you mentioned... when you talk about air strikes, when their forces are very close to civilian forces, how8yv are you going to distinguish? >> well they were fat gates of benghazi and we were able to stop them there. we have precision-guided bombs, we could have people on the ground as air controllers i think it's a very doable kind of situation. >> woodruff: and what about, senator, the argument that former republicans secretaries of state-- henry kissinger and james baker-- both of whom have said that for reasons of cost and because there's no real clarity about what's going to replace the assad regime that it would be a mistake to move militarily? >> well in all due respect, i've seen this movie before. i saw the movie when people said we shouldn't go to bosnia. i saw the movie when think said we shouldn't go to kosovo. i saw the movie when they said anduv((qqbed that we shouldn't intervene in rwanda and 850,000 people were slaughtered. >> woodruff: government leaks, you've made

. >> likely so on egypt this week and libya. remember, libya is a sore point for the russians. >> peter, you mentioned russians have been helpful in getting supplies into afghanistan. that's all the more important now because pakistan is now allowing supplies to come in. is that -- does that explain this kind of weird disdense between the pentagon and state department this week in talking about whether russia was supplying helicopters or not? gwen: weird dissidents is a kind way of putting it. >> very kind. secretary clinton saying putin supplying attack helicopters to assad sounds tough, raises the pressure of the pentagon. well, yeah, there are three helicopters that have been sent back to russia for refurbishment and russia returned them under contract. gwen: why? >> she's trying to raise the pressure on them and there's a weird disdinse here and there's irony the biggest success of the reset is also the biggest problem. now we need them. we need russian air corps we put in place to supply our war against the tall began and a

looking at what happened in libya and of course in the wake of the death of moammar khadafy and suspicions of what could happen again with the u.s. involved. >> brianna, tell us about the russian ships again, and what is the purpose there? >> well, at this point, we are really trying to understand a little bit more about it, but there are these two russian warships, and it is sort of when you look at the timing of it, i think that is the concern among the u.s. officials. there is a russian naval base and a lot of people may not real realize this on the mediterranean coast, so russia has a military interest in syria, which is one of the last really or the last middle east ally that it has, but you look at the timing of it, and as russia is backing up syria, and that is really the concern here. >> and brianna, real quickly here, if you can tell us about what is taking place in russia in moscow, and you have the talks dealing with iran and other world leaders to try to get them to curb the nuclear ambitions here. do we think that there is a chance, a stand that there is going to be some break

they ask, how can you defend what we did in libya, which was the right thing to do with what's going on in our inaction in syria where far more people are getting killed and a far greater strategic interest to the united states. and you know, american officials have to answer except to say it's very hard. >> no answer except to say we're going to continue to try a diplomatic process na so far has failed miserably. appreciate your insights always, david. keep looking for the answer. i'm not sure it's out there. the greek elections seems to have regulators breathing a sigh of relief. what it could mean for your 401(k). and later, better than 700% increase in what some people consider the online censership. stay in the moment sanya focus lolo, focus let's do this i am from baltimore south carolina... bloomington, california... austin, texas... we are all here to represent the country we love this is for everyone back home it's go time. across america, we're all committed to team usa. >> announcer: this is the day. the day that we say to the world of identity thieves "enough." we're life

we don't know what's going to come to power in libya. we don't know what's going to come to power in syria after assad-- whenever that day happens. are we going through something now with tunisia and now in egypt, an evolutionary process of sort of people like the muslim brotherhood in power and that may change them as much as they change the country? >> well, that certainly has been the u.s. hope is that as the muslim brotherhood, the muslim democrats generally began to go into politics, had political roots to express their frustrations and their desires that that would take the violent edge off of islamist movements and they would then have to grapple with the realities of power. how to bring foreign investment, how to get an economy moving. how to get the g.d.p. growth level above 5%. those are the specific issues that now face the likely president morsi. and it was hoped that across the arab world that this process of empowering people who had been excluded by a corrupt essentially police state system would be beneficial. and i think

they are very leery of what happened in libya and we remember what happened in libya, which was a military action mounted and eventually the leader gadhafi, taken out. >> so many people were hoping there would be a better outcome of that meeting. jill dougherty, thank you. soledad o'brien will look at the crisis in syria and rist between u.s. and russia and how to solve it when she's joined by john negroponte, the former u.s. ambassador to iraq. >>> it is 37 minutes past 5:00, jamie dimon back in the spotlight on capitol hill. he will be facing a second round of questioning from congress about the bank's recent multibillion dollar trading loss. he's xpektded to continue to play down the blunder, calling it a isolated event. house committee will hear from the bank's regulators, taking heat for not detecting the risky trading before billions of dollars were lost. >>> more than 3,000 people showing up at the state capitol in lansing, michigan, there to hear a prize winning playwright, recite the vagina monologues after brown used the word vagina while debating. those republicans banned brown

they don't want anything that even comes close to what happened in libya. so i think you'd have to say although rhetorically words, they are in agreement on the final objective, but how you get there they still appear to be quite far apart. >> jill, when you say they really don't want the military to get involved, they are already providing, are they not, some military -- some assistance to the government itself, they just don't want it to get into the opposition's hands, is that right? >> well, they've been providing -- you can say for years certainly going back years and years weapons, hard, heavy weapons to the syrian government. and more recently, not immediately, some helicopters that have become the big subject of discussion. in fact, one of the reports about those helicopters have become very big. remember, with the report about the ship and this is now actually happening as we speak. >> that russian warship that is making its way to sir yeah the last russian military base outside of the former military base. what do we know about that? >> reporter:

it's not like libya. you have -- even if you wanted to try to have safe zones, everybody in syria is mixed up with another ethnic group. there are no big areas of one type of ethnic group. they are in towns and cities. would be very difficult to protect at all by air. you'd really have to send in ground troops. so the only game in town right now for -- at least for this administration, the way they look at it is to try to put as much pressure on the assad -- the people who were supporting assad, it's not working very well, however, and then keep hammering russia to try to do what it can to entice or push assad to step aside. >> i appreciate all of you joining us for this special coverage of president bush -- president -- excuse me, president obama's remarks. there's more breaking news in cairo. thousands are in tahrir square as we speak. we're live with details next. ya know, your rates and fees aren't exactly competitive. who do you think i am, quicken loans? [ spokesman ] when you refinance your mortgag

>> no, i don't think you could say libya has settled down yet. i don't think that it would be possible to glide seamlessly from 42 years of dictatorship to democracy overnight. the future of libya really does hang in the balance at the moment. because after the revolution libya has got such disparate views on what they want. some people want a secular state. some people want a an islamist state. and those young men who we saw during the revolution firing their weapons into the air and-- they don't want to give those weapons up. and the central government such as it is, really is very week. it has little legitimacy. >> and your book reminded us just how thinly populated and how fast an area this country really is. is it harder to make common cause, harder to make one country out of a place with the peculiar demographic and geographic challenges of libya? >> well, i really think the libyans have got a lot going for them. as you say, small population, 6 million people. they're rich. they've got oil & gas. an many of them are very well educated. one

but it is not the kind of numbers that we saw in libya where you also will remember in libya, it was not just the military, but high level political defections and that we are not seeing in syria, so it is a turning point? my guess is no. will it become a turning point when the numbers increase, then perhaps at that point we can talk about something more significant. >> it is now that you can say turkey and syrians are enemies? >> well, they are denying that i are doing so, but we are hearing from the multiple points that turkey is turning a blind eye to armed shipments going into syria, and reports that saudi arabia and qatar, an important american ally are also going into syria, and there is no official recognition it is happening but on the ground many eyewitnesses are saying that arms are flowing into syria to help the rebels. >> boy, a messy situation. hala, thank you. appreciate i. >>> what are the latinos staying a bt the landmark ruling from the supreme court today? we will find out. [ male announcer ] it's back again at red lobster, but not for long! your very own four cours