How Will The Civil Wars In Syria And Libya End?

Christopher O'Brien, RCD: How Will The Civil Wars In Syria And Libya End

Introduction

This analysis assesses the best way to end a civil war according to four different outcomes: 1. a regime military victory, 2. a rebel military victory, 3. a politically inclusive negotiated settlement, and 4. a politically exclusive negotiated settlement. It found that military victories led to a more stable outcome compared to negotiated settlements. Additionally, different aspects of the civil war can determine whether a rebel or regime victory is more likely. Lastly, politically exclusive negotiated settlements result in the least stable environment, often acting as a trigger to reignite the conflict.

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WNU Editor: Even if the wars end today, it will take hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild these countries. No one is going to invest in these countries knowing to well how fragile and divisive they have become.

The Syrian War Will End When The Last Rebel Stronghold Of Idlib Province Has Fallen

Rebecca Collard, Time: Idlib Could Be the Last Major Battlefield of the Syrian Civil War. But Assad Won’t Take It Easily

On Aug. 9, the Syrian army dropped leaflets on the province of Idlib telling residents that “the war is nearing its end” and urging them to cooperate with government forces. One showed grainy pre-war images of an old woman embracing a soldier; a young man studying; and a leafy, peaceful Damascus street: This is how we were before terrorism, it read. Then came photos of a destroyed neighborhood, a young boy carrying an unexploded shell, and women covered in niqabs and chained together. It’s time to stop the bloodshed and destruction, another flyer said.

For years, Syria’s defeated rebels have fled to the northern territory of Idlib, which was established as a “de-escalation zone” guaranteed by Turkey, Russia and Iran. As the government retook areas like Aleppo and eastern Ghouta, surrendering fighters and their families were sent to Idlib under a deal negotiated by the regime’s ally Russia. Now it is the last major opposition-held region in the country–and the last major obstacle to President Bashar Assad declaring victory. His regime is sending tanks north and has scaled up air attacks in preparation for what could be the final battle in this seven-year-long civil war.

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WNU Editor: The Syrian military will launch an all-out attack on the province of Idlib one day. But I do not see it happening anytime soon. Turkey will treat such an attack as a red-line, and that threat will keep any Syrian government engagement on hold.

Commentaries And Analysis On Yesterday's Coalition Air Strikes Against Syria

Andrew Tabler, The Atlantic: How Syria Came to This

A story of ethnic and sectarian conflict, international connivance, and above all civilian suffering

Seven years of horrific twists and turns in the Syrian Civil War make it hard to remember that it all started with a little graffiti.

In March 2011, four children in the southern city of Der’a scrawled on a wall “It’s your turn, Doctor”— a not so subtle prediction that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a British trained ophthalmologist and self-styled reformer, would go down in the the manner of the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia, the Mubarak regime in Egypt, and eventually, the Qaddafi regime in Libya. But Syria’s story would turn out differently.

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Commentaries And Analysis On Yesterday's Coalition Air Strikes Against Syria

Analysis: Putin sits back as US, allies strike Syria -- Vladimir Isachenkov, AP
Despite Trump's bluster, it's unclear what Syria strikes accomplished -- Peter Beaumont and Andrew Roth, the Guardian
Donald Trump's Syria strikes are designed to hit Assad's chemical weapons while limiting escalation, but may not be enough -- Anne Barker, ABC News Online
What mission has the US accomplished in Syria? -- Al Jazeera
Despite Trump's 'Mission accomplished', question raised over U.S. Syria strategy -- Lesley Wroughton, Reuters
US-led strikes on Syria: A move with unpredictable consequences -- Chase Winter, DW
The Syria powder keg: danger in rush for influence on crowded battlefield -- Julian Borger, The Guardian
Mission failure in Syria -- Stephen Blank, The Hill
Will Syria's Assad get the message? Ask Russia and Iran, say former US officials -- Michael Knigge, DW
Assad's brutal strategy survives regardless of Trump's victory tweet -- Patrick Wintour, The Guardian
US, allies have drawn a red line on chemical weapons, but Syria retains capacity -- Zoe Daniel, ABC News Online
'Mission Accomplished!' But What Is the Mission in Syria? -- New York Times

This Is Why The Syrian Rebellion Failed

Fouad al-Ghraibi is seen (2ndL) with fighters in this undated photo in Idlib, Syria. REUTERS/Stringer

Reuters: The lives of three men show why Syria’s rebels are losing

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The war has cost one man part of his liver and intestines. Another his home and work. A third his homeland and studies.

All three have lost hope.

Abu Farhan, Fouad al-Ghraibi and Abu al-Baraa took the rebels’ side in the violence which began after the government put down street protests that started on March 15, 2011.

Ghraibi, who has a business renting out construction machinery, joined a rebel group and later set up his own fighting unit. Abu al-Baraa, then just 16, joined a militant group, the Nusra Front, and became a jihadist fighter. Abu Farhan, a student and part-time kitchen fitter, joined the first protests in the central Syrian city of Homs and went on to became an opposition activist.

The harrowing tales of the three men — they don’t know each other but all risked their lives by siding against President Bashar al-Assad — help show why the rebellion is failing.

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WNU Editor: These men are defeated .... I guess seven years of continuous war will do that to you.

No One Is Winning The Syrian Civil War

Omar Sanadiki / Reuters

Krishnadev Calamur, The Atlantic: No One Is Winning the Syrian Civil War

Bashar al-Assad is only in power because of Russia's support. His country is devastated.

Seven years ago, when Syrian protesters called for “a day of rage” against Bashar al-Assad, there were few signs that they would have an impact. Three years later, as the protests transformed into a civil war, one that would eventually draw in the region’s powers, it seemed a matter of when, not if, Assad would go the way of his fellow strongmen in Tunisia and Egypt. But on March 15, 2018, which by some accounts marks the seventh anniversary of the start of the conflict, Assad appears no closer to leaving office than he was seven years ago.*

Assad’s has kept his position, at great cost to Syria. But it would be wrong to say he is in control. It’s true that he, with the support of Russia and Iran, has held on to Syria’s major cities, including Damascus and Aleppo, as well as much of the West of the country. (Russia’s military intervention in the conflict in late 2015 gave Assad a decisive edge.) Most of the Syrian population that didn’t flee the country now lives in areas controlled by the government. But Syria as a whole has effectively collapsed.

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Update: Timeline of the Syrian conflict as it enters 8th year (AP)

WNU Editor: Could not have said it any better .... specifically the part where no one is going to provide funds to rebuild Syria

Iran Is Losing Trust In Russia

Russian soldiers are seen along a new corridor of Jisreen-Mleha road where they expect people to arrive from eastern Ghouta, Damascus, Syria, March 8, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

Rohollah Faghihi, National Interest: Iranian mistrust of Russia surges as Syrian war winds down

In Iran, the media's negative view toward Russia is intensifying amid speculation that Moscow is bypassing Tehran in Syria.

Unfavorable Iranian views of the Kremlin go back to the early 1800s, when the Russian empire defeated the Iranian army in two consecutive wars, leading to the cession of major territories to Russia. Under two treaties between the two countries in 1813 and 1828, Iran ceded Dagestan, eastern Georgia, modern-day Armenia, the southern parts of current-day Azerbaijan, including Nakhchivan, and Igdir province, now part of Turkey.

Negative views toward Moscow persisted into the 20th century. In 1965, 14 years before the Islamic Revolution that toppled the US-backed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi regime, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, slammed the Soviet Union along with Britain and the United States as enemies of Iran, even calling the Soviet Union filthier than the other two.

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WNU Editor: Many have been predicting that this was going to happen ....  a split between Russia and Iran over Syria once the war winds down. Both countries have different views on how to end the conflict .... Russia wants a poltiical settlement, while Iran wants a complete military solution. And both have different views on how to rebuild the country, and how to be repaid for their sacrifices.

Life Is Very Different For Some In Syria

Believe it or not this is Syria pic.twitter.com/c77UTeGTZP

— English Russia (@EnglishRussia1) February 21, 2018

WNU Editor: To say that the above video is bizarre is an understatement. I have seen a few of these videos in the past few years .... and I am not sure if they are true. The country is burning .... but for some it is life that is untouched by war.

Who Really Controls Syria?

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Strategy Page: Syria: Rearranging The Chess Board For The Next War

Who controls Syria once ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and other rebels are defeated? It is basically a showdown between Iran (which has been at war with Israel since the 1980s) and Israel (which does not want Iranian military forces on its Syrian border under any circumstances). Iran is also at war with Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Arab allies. Not surprisingly the Saudis and Israel have been cooperating more since 2001 because of this shared threat. Yet the Arabs in general have a problem as they have been insisting that Israel does not have the right to exist since Israel was created in 1947 and decades of state sponsored propaganda leaves a lot of Arabs confused as Israel and Saudi Arabia cooperate to deal with Iran. .

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WNU Editor: A short summary on what to expect in Syria in the coming months.

Is Syrian President Assad Here To Stay?

Mr. Assad, center, greeting worshipers at a mosque in Qarat, Syria, this month. He increasingly seems likely to rule for years to come, albeit over a greatly reduced country. Credit Syrian Arab News Agency

New York Times: Syrian War Drags On, but Assad's Future Looks as Secure as Ever

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Although Syria’s bloody six-year war is far from over, one result is already becoming clear: President Bashar al-Assad looks as though he is here to stay.

On the battlefield, no one remains who is willing and able to topple him. The rebel forces are waning, and President Trump has canceled the C.I.A. program that provided them with arms and support. The Islamic State, with its own agenda to rule Syria as a caliphate, is being routed from its strongholds.

Regional powers, foreign officials and Syrians themselves are increasingly operating as if he will rule for years to come, albeit over a greatly reduced country. His allies have begun to trumpet what they see as their impending victory, and his government is talking about rebuilding a shattered country, hosting an international trade fair last month and signing a deal with Iran to rebuild its power grid.

Even some longtime rebel supporters have grown war-weary and started to embrace the inevitable.

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Update: The Syrian war is far from over. But the endgame is already playing out (Liz Sly, Washington Post).

WNU Editor: The war will grind on .... even if every region in the country is taken over by the Syrian army. Too many people have been killed, wounded, or displaced. The sense of revenge and retribution will be a part of the Syrian culture for years .... if not decades. But for now .... the war continues.

Robert Fisk Remembers A Syrian General

Exactly a year before he was killed, General Fouad Khadour sits in his headquarters outside Palmyra Nelofer Pazira

Robert Fisk, The Independent: The Syrian army were standing up to Isis long before the Americans ever fired a missile

The survivors of this army, and their families will expect their sacrifice to be respected and, indeed, rewarded

I don’t like armies. They are dangerous institutions. Soldiers are not heroes just because they fight. And I’ve grown tired of saying that those who live by the sword sometimes die by the sword. But in an age when the Americans and the Iraqis and Isis can account for 40,000 civilian deaths in Mosul in the past twelve months, compared to 50,000 civilians slaughtered by the Mongols in 13th-century Aleppo – a human rights improvement of US aircrews, Iraqi brutality and Isis sadism over the Mongol hordes by a mere 10,000 souls – death sometimes seems to have lost its meaning.

Unless you know the victims or their families. I have a friend whose mother was murdered in the Damascus suburb of Harasta near the start of the Syrian war, another whose brother-in-law was kidnapped east of the city and never seen again. I met a little girl whose mother and small brother were shot down by al-Nusrah killers in the town of Jisr al-Shughour, and a Lebanese who believes his nephew was hanged in a Syrian jail. And then, this month, in the eastern Syrian desert, near the dust-swept shack village of al-Arak, a Syrian soldier I’d come to know was killed by Isis.

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WNU Editor: Robert Fisk is waaayyy too optimistic (in my opinion) on the future of Syria.

Can Syria Ever Be Repaired Once The Civil War Is Over?

A man at a site recently hit by what activists said was a Scud missile in Aleppo’s Ard al-Hamra neighborhood, February 23, 2013. REUTERS/Muzaffar Salman

Robert Fisk, The Independent: Can Syria ever be repaired when its long civil war finally comes to an end?

Syria’s conflict will end with many more casualties and many more missing than the Lebanese civil war. Vast areas of towns and cities are razed to the ground.

After its titanic civil war, can Syria remain a united state? And if it does – if Syria can be put back together again – how do you repair its people?

These are not idle words when, across the border, the people of Lebanon have again been marking the mournful anniversary of the start of their own civil war in 1975. The dead of Lebanon, like the dead of Syria, have been buried and resurrected by journalists and politicians. At the end of the Lebanese Civil War we reckoned 150,000 had died. Two months ago, a young Beirut activist suddenly came up with a figure of 200,000. What happened to the extra 50,000? And then last month, the figure rose again in a local newspaper to 250,000. What happened to the extra 100,000?

It’s worth remembering these disturbing changes. Syria’s dead simply cannot be calculated. When the UN figure reached 400,000, most of the media went along with it.

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WNU Editor: It is going to take 75 to 100 years before the ravages of this civil war .... once it is finally over .... to become just a distant memory.

World Reaction To Last Night's U.S. Missile Attack On Syria

BBC: Syria war: World reaction to US missile attack

World leaders have been responding to US President Donald Trump's overnight missile strikes on a Syrian government air base suspected of launching a chemical attack on a rebel-held town on Tuesday.

Syria

President Bashar al-Assad's office has spoken out against the US airstrikes.

"What America did is nothing but foolish and irresponsible behaviour, which only reveals its short-sightedness and political and military blindness to reality," it said.

The Syrian National Coalition - Assad's main opposition - said it wanted to see more air strikes to impair the Assad government's abilities.
"We hope for more strikes... and that these are just the beginning," spokesman Ahmad Ramadan told the AFP news agency.
But the Free Syrian Army told Reuters it feared for acts of "revenge" by Assad, and his allies, against civilians.

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More News On World Reaction To Last Night's U.S. Missile Attack On Syria

US strikes on Syria: How the world reacted -- AFP
Allies and adversaries react to U.S. attack in Syria -- CBS/AP
US polarizes world with attack on Syrian regime -- DW
Syria: Donald Trump praised, condemned as world leaders react to missile strike -- ABC News Online
Saudi Arabia, Iran, others react to US strike in Syria -- Al Jazeera
Syria airstrikes: global reaction exposes divisions over civil war -- The Guardian
U.S. strikes on Syria unsettle Europe’s attitudes toward Trump -- Washington Post
Allies praise U.S. strike on Syria as Russia and Iran condemn it - Politico
Congress greets Syria strike with mix of applause and anger -- Washington Post
Syria war: Trump's missile strike attracts US praise - and barbs -- BBC
UK government 'fully supports' US air strike in Syria -- BBC
Downing Street backs US missile strike on Syrian air base as an 'appropriate response to a barbaric attack' - and says May WAS told in advance -- Daily Mail
EU and Nato welcome US strike on Syria -- Financial Times
Syria strike brings rare criticism for Trump from France's Le Pen -- Reuters
Turkey welcomes US Syria strike, urges no-fly zone -- AFP
Turkey's Erdogan says U.S. attack in Syria 'positive' but not enough -- Reuters
Turkey calls for Assad's ouster, says supports U.S. missile strike -- Reuters
Jordan says U.S. strike on Syria was 'necessary response': Petra -- Reuters
China urges all sides to find political settlement to war in Syria -- Reuters
EU says understands U.S. strikes in Syria but political solution key -- Reuters
Merkel: U.S. attack on Syria is understandable given Syrian suffering -- Reuters
Italy says supports U.S. strikes on Syria -- Reuters
Netanyahu leads worldwide praise of Trump's airstrikes on Syria and says he hopes they will be heard from Iran to North Korea -- Daily Mail
Damascus to Blame for US Attack on Syria Air base - NATO's Stoltenberg -- Sputnik
Lebanon's Hezbollah calls U.S. strike on Syria 'idiotic step' -- Reuters
Iran issues threat over US strikes in Syria -- FOX News

After Six Years Of War Has The Syrian Revolution Been Worth it?

Destroyed buildings in Homs. About half of Syria’s prewar population has fled, the United Nations says, and nearly four million people are refugees abroad. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Bethan McKernan, The Independent: After six years of war, Syria’s rebels reflect on whether revolution has been worth it


‘I have too much and too little to say. I was on the side of freedom in 2011, and I am on the side of freedom now… But how many more will have to die?’

Almost half a million dead. More than 10.9 million forced to flee their homes, many into the arms of traffickers or graves at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

Cities starved into submission by government sieges, tens of thousands disappeared in regime prisons, and the rampant growth of extremist ideology intent on sucking the little life and joy left out of Syria.

An entire generation of children who don’t flinch at explosions or artillery fire in the distance.

Such is the state of the Syrian revolution, six years on since the hopes of the Arab Spring.

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WNU Editor: The answer is a big NO!

Blood Feuds Are Going To Last For Generations When The Syrian War Is Finally Over

Deir al-Zour, like many sites in Syria, has been laid waste by the war, leaving more Syrians fleeing as aid runs low. Credit Khalil Ashawi/Reuters

Batoul Karbijha, Al Jazeera: How blood feud is growing among the Syrian youth

The schism in the fabric of Syrian society is very evident and yet intricate at the same time.

"We will take revenge from everyone who kept silent and everyone who applauded the death of all innocent immaculate souls in Aleppo," Hosam Al-Bakri, a teary-eyed youth refugee told me, referring to the recent recapture of Aleppo, considered as a fateful victory for the Syrian regime over the armed opposition.

"Assad is worse than ISIL, believe me," he continued. This judgement may raise a few eyebrows, but it shouldn't, as this is an inevitable sentiment of young people watching their fellow countrymen killed in cold blood and evacuated from their homes.

Aleppo was a key battleground in the war between forces loyal to the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and rebels who want to overthrow him.

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WNU Editor: Feelings of revenge are almost always the out come of every war .... but with time will dissipate. Will this happen in Syria .... yes .... but I suspect that it is going to take more than just a few generations.

There Will Be Nothing But Rubble When The Syrian War Is Over

A man at a site recently hit by what activists said was a Scud missile in Aleppo’s Ard al-Hamra neighborhood, February 23, 2013. REUTERS/Muzaffar Salman

New York Times: For Bashar al-Assad, Winning the Syrian War May Lead to New Troubles

BEIRUT, Lebanon — With the Syrian government making large territorial gains in Aleppo on Monday, routing rebel fighters and sending thousands of people fleeing for their lives, President Bashar al-Assad is starting to look as if he may survive the uprising, even in the estimation of some of his staunchest opponents.

Yet, Mr. Assad’s victory, if he should achieve it, may well be Pyrrhic: He would rule over an economic wasteland hampered by a low-level insurgency with no end in sight, diplomats and experts in the Middle East and elsewhere say.
As rebel forces in Aleppo absorbed the harshest blow since they seized more than half the city four years ago, residents reported seeing people cut down in the streets as they searched frantically for shelter. The assault punctuated months of grinding battle that has destroyed entire neighborhoods of the city, once Syria’s largest and an industrial hub.

If Aleppo fell, the Syrian government would control the country’s five largest cities and most of its more populous west. That would leave the rebels fighting Mr. Assad with only the northern province of Idlib and a few isolated pockets of territory in Aleppo and Homs Provinces and around the capital, Damascus.

But analysts doubted that would put an end to five years of war that have driven five million Syrians into exile and killed at least a quarter of a million people.

Ryan C. Crocker, a veteran diplomat in the Middle East, including in Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait and Iraq, where he served as an American ambassador, said he believed that the fighting in Syria would go on for years because once the Assad government had taken the cities, the insurgents would hide in the countryside.

“The Lebanon civil war is a comparison worth looking at,” he said. “It was long, hot and mean, and it took 15 years to end and it only ended because the Syrians moved into Lebanon and stopped it.”
He added, “With Syria, we’re just five years into it, and there’s no Syria to come in and end it.”

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WNU Editor: With hundreds of thousands dead .... a million wounded .... families torn apart .... and much of the country destroyed .... and it take 50+ years before the bitterness of this conflict is forgotten.

Life In Damascus Still Goes On

Damascus, Syria. Britannica

New York Times: Damascus Diary: A Syrian City Filled With Life, and Hints of Brutal Death

There is always a rush of tension and excitement driving into Damascus, a city inhabited for thousands of years, where cultures and influences have mixed and accumulated like coral on a reef.

More than five years into Syria’s chaotic civil war, the capital is relatively undamaged and functioning, bustling with commuters, markets and restaurants — especially compared with Aleppo, where government airstrikes this week are pummeling rebel-held districts and rebels are shelling government-held ones. But my stay in Damascus early this month, even under the restrictions of government minders, revealed new ways that war has wounded and warped the city, which I have visited nine times since 2001.

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WNU Editor: A different view of the war.

Is The Syrian Conflict A War That Can Only Be Resolved By Military Means?

A man at a site recently hit by what activists said was a Scud missile in Aleppo’s Ard al-Hamra neighborhood, February 23, 2013. REUTERS/Muzaffar Salman

Bilal Abdul Kareem, Middle East Monitor: Why there can only be a military solution in Syria

Most of the outside world watched in horror at news that the ill-fated Aleppo aid convoy was blasted and burned.

Words such as “unbelievable” and “shocking” filled news broadcasts. However, here in besieged Aleppo, the events of that day were neither unbelievable, nor shocking.

Most of the outside world watched in horror at news that the ill-fated Aleppo aid convoy was blasted and burned.

Words such as “unbelievable” and “shocking” filled news broadcasts. However, here in besieged Aleppo, the events of that day were neither unbelievable, nor shocking.

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WNU Editor: I have also somewhat come to the conclusion that the Syrian conflict is now a war that can only be resolved my military means .... and will it happen only over a long period of time. All the sides are no longer interested in talking to each other .... and all sides are too hardened to even contemplate negotiation and compromise. The result then is all too predictable .... a long and grinding insurgency .... with the involvement of outsides either directly or through proxies. My prediction .... while rebel held-Aleppo may fall, controlling these territories with a heavy Syrian military presence and having the means to conquer additional rebel held regions will be very difficult for a Syrian Army that has suffered enormous casualties in the past 5 years. There is a limit on what the Syrian regime can do .... and I suspect that this will be more than evident as time passes by. As a result .... the war will slowly grind on until the rebellion has been finally crushed ..... sighhh .... I can easily this going on for the next few years.

10 More Years Of War In Syria?

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Jeremy Bowen, BBC: Syria conflict: Grim prospect of 10 more years of war

Someone visiting central Damascus for the first time might wonder where to find the war. The covered markets in the Old City are packed with busy people. Traffic jams snarl up the streets. People with money can eat in restaurants.

The centre of the capital is the showcase of the government of President Bashar al-Assad. It has functioned well enough during the day since the war started in 2011.

Nights are a different matter. The nightlife of Damascus lives on only in a few determined outposts.

But until this last spring, visitors would not have to search for the war. They could hear it, even if they kept away from places where they could see it.

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WNU Editor: I have trouble believing that the Syrian war could last another 10 years .... then again .... I never thought that it would have lasted 5 years.

Is The Syrian Government In Name Only?

Alsouria

Tobias Schneider, War On The Rocks: The Decay of the Syrian Regime is Much Worse Than You Think

In a recent interview conducted by Aaron David Miller for Foreign Policy, Robert Malley, one of the president’s most trusted advisors on the Middle East, once again enumerated the competing priorities of U.S. Syria policy: the need to balance humanitarian concerns with the desire to “preserve state institutions” and avoid a power vacuum so that the country does not slide into total anarchy.

Over the past three years in particular, this line of argument has not only been a mainstay those supporting a carefully calibrated, limited U.S. Syria policy in line with the current administration but also by a number of commentators writing both implicitly and explicitly in defense of Damascus. In two revisionist articles published recently at War on the Rocks, an author writing under a pseudonym presents the Assad regime as ruthless, but at least secular, pluralistic and — most importantly — as the final basion of civic, central authority in a tumultuous Middle East. Whereas the indefatigable Emile Hokayem already formulated an eloquent response regarding sectarian dynamics in the Levant, there is an equally important question raised in the piece warrants answering: What’s really left of the Syrian central state?

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WNU Editor: People have been predicting the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria for years .... including me .... but he is still in power, and his regime has made headway in this war. Unfortunately .... I do not see any light at the end of the tunnel in this conflict .... this is a conflict that is probably going to go on for years.

Former CIA Director Paneeta Describes The 'Worst-Case Scenario' In Syrian Civil War

Leon E. Panetta CIA Director

CBS: Former CIA director on "worst-case scenario" in Syrian civil war

The next president will face countless challenges on day one. Among the biggest is the ongoing civil war in Syria. Margaret Brennan spoke with Leon Panetta -- a former CIA director, defense secretary, and White House chief of staff -- about the road ahead for U.S. involvement in the war-torn nation.

LEON PANETTA: Inaction is not an option in Syria because if you stand back, the situation is gonna get worse. Look, the best-case scenario would be to have Assad step down, to have a transitional government be able to establish itself representing each of the factions that are there -- the Sunnis, the Kurds, the Shias. And then, frankly, have the Russians and whatever is left of the Syrian forces join with the United States in going after ISIS to truly defeat them. That would be the best-case scenario.

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WNU Editor: Former CIA Director Panetta is describing the current situation in Syria ...and as for what the U.S. can do .... at the moment not much.