James Jeffrey: “A political solution is highly unlikely with a government acting the way the current Assad government acts.”

He has shown little willingness to be flexible on any issue, and at the moment may be concluding that it is better to sit on a pile of rubble with half his population and 60 percent of his country than to compromise.

What we got was a marginal product. It also does the job for 10 years of keeping them a year away from having a nuclear capability if they adhere to it.

we would do everything short of military force to try to hold off a Turkish incursion or Turkish military action against them.

there's a fundamental difference that we do not make clear as a country, let alone an administration, between putting troops under treaty obligations to defend territory and people against somebody else and the troops that we had in…