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Assad has to go. I mean, the way that ISIS can recruit, and the rebels that are in the north, and all the chaos that's happening through a lot of Syria circles around a lot of people that do not like Assad.

To simply demand that Assad go, and create a vacuum, could make the circumstances worse. To 'protect' Assad and his brutality is unconscionable. So you have to have a transition period here.

Some leaders think time will solve the problem. Their hope is that Assad's regime will ultimately fall from the heavy toll of the horrors it has spawned. From past experience with such regimes, this scenario is unlikely to happen.

The Assad regime has lost the consent of the governed, and it is difficult to see how a replacement Alawite regime would be able to regain this consent.

Unless there is meaningful change in Syria and an end to the crackdown, President Assad and those around him will find themselves isolated internationally and discredited within Syria.

Assad is the president of Syria. He enjoys fairly effective control over his country.

There is no one leader that's going to unify all of Syria that suddenly everyone is going to go, 'Yes, that's a logical place.' They're not unified. They don't have a setup succession like we do in the United States.

A lot of the issue that is happening in Syria is Assad is still there. And after years now, the administration, of saying Assad has to go, the pressure is not being applied to Russia, to Iran - the folks that are propping up Assad - and Assad himself to be able to actually be removed there and to transition to another leader.

There are still plenty of fighting forces inside of Syria who want to see Assad go. We should have been helping them from the very beginning.

Da'esh and Assad are not separate problems.