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Syria and Iran cooperating on shadow army

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    Leveraging diplomatic strength with Syria - Is Turkey the answer?

  • Duration 5:50
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Welcome back to on the -- foxnews.com live -- stick with Syria and Iran now and bring in Mike Barrett who is CEO.

-- diligent innovations joining us from our DC bureau great to see Mike.

They don't -- Mike I guess like a lot of people you're not surprised to hear that Syria and Iran.

Are allegedly cooperating on this kind of shadow all media to help each other -- No not at all I mean this is certainly the pattern we've seen from from Iran for years they've used everything from.

Smuggling weapons via diplomatic pouches to carry out attacks to their open support of Hezbollah and a very -- a variety of other.

You know kind of hidden hands so this is certainly how they operate they love to just.

-- we go in there and mess things up but also not have they -- official in premature on it so that they can kind of create chaos but not not feel the retribution sport.

It's a little bit -- huge challenges it as we look at how to deal with the situation knowing Syria's -- Mike that you have.

You've got Iran in that obviously up pulling various strings.

It appears according to the defense -- Leon Panetta himself.

That al-Qaeda is in that.

And then we have this president who's brutalizing.

His people there on many good options for us out there and what might come next.

Well that that's exactly right so I mean -- thing that really concerns me and a lot of us as we look at the situation is there's a good humanitarian reason to get involved and you know obviously we we wanna support and promote democracy.

But the negatives the downsides here are really severe really significant.

So you're talking about basically this is an expression of the Sunni Shia divide there's been going on for centuries literally centuries and it is a very significant conflict.

You've got Iran Syria basically on one side you've got -- And in the gulf Arab countries on the other side.

In it it.

Iraq is split right down the middle because -- push you have Sunnis she -- divide right there.

We saw how that worked out I mean horrible just terrible insurrection in civil war for years there's a there's a lot more killing to be done unfortunately while these two.

Fractions of religion battle it out.

And I think for the US as much as we may wanna get involved we may want to try to help one side or the other would really have to be careful not to get involved in that because we don't want to be caught in the crossfire.

So really right now the correct law in the annual view the correct response from the US and other intent and international -- is to do.

Pretty much nothing.

Well I think enforcing -- on the situations we've pretty much have to stand by I mean we are now completely useless.

You know -- -- -- plan in the the idea that.

UN peace monitors and things and in -- residence it's not effective right you can't keep the peace he can't send in peacekeepers.

When there's no peace to be -- but on the other hand you can't -- people who may be affiliated with al-Qaeda in part of the Sunni parts of terrorism that worried about.

And you certainly don't want -- do anything that's gonna supporters sustain the Shia parts that has -- the others.

Particularly -- all the other regional things that are going on potential Israeli strike against Iran over their nuclear program.

Again it's only she -- you know we don't want either side of the militants to come out of this ahead will we do one is the moderates in the region to come out more powerful so.

The one place that we potentially could try to leverage some of our diplomatic strength is through Turkey which historically has been kind of a voice of moderation.

Although even there the ruling regime is a little bit less.

Democratic and a little bit more religiously oriented right now right over one -- one of our viewers are issuing you know as you bring up Turkey.

-- saying the what would have occurred stand on this issue because there are powerful and police cohesive group -- sort of straddles much of many of the nations that do they plan to they have a role to play.

Well historically they've kind of had to live the guys you say they straddles the of the different nations they've kind of had to live in paramilitary kind of an existence.

So I think they you know the Turks are never gonna allow a real safe haven for the Kurds in the long term.

So that the challenge for the Kurds is how to they continue to have some regional you know reasonable level of autonomy.

Without actually ending up getting the Turks that the Turkish military fired up enough that it.

Goes in and really hits them again as has happened multiple times of the past years.

Same thing when they -- -- frankly Iran is willing to allow a certain level of of Kurdish.

You know -- I don't -- make as long as they stay quiet and of course they use them to put pressure on other ally you know and other countries throughout they're the region.

It's unfortunate occurrence -- a good news for them is an Iraq that you have reasonable safe haven they've got some resources from the oil wealth.

So you know they're a much better position today than they have been and you know in decades and I think that basically they want to kind of keep their heads down and try to consolidate the gains that they've had in Northern Iraq are.

And and just saw on the on the bigger picture all of Syrian Mike.

Before I let you go.

-- biggest -- argued by some experts that the only way he really deal with Syria.

Is by dealing with Iran first do you agree -- that that we take care of Iran.

That in essence would pull the rug -- from president a sad.

So one -- that look into what does it mean in terms of taking care of Iraq on.

Well I mean exactly that's the point right so that's why I look at this is the broader -- conflict between the two branches of Islam.

If you were to take a significant blow against against Iran and against the Shia.

Then yeah that's very much gonna -- aside and his regime that's probably gonna get them potentially out of power mean again nothing's guaranteed it would certainly be major -- -- -- if you were to.

Do some thing you know very aggressively against Iran.

On the other hand you're gonna seed minority populations in Bahrain all throughout the gulf countries all throughout the whole regents also lighting it back up and so you're you're really gonna have.

Probably a civil war throughout the whole region if -- the west is seen as particularly intervening on one side or the other.

Which again while it's an unsatisfactory conclusion the realist approach to this is to say.

Kind of stand back -- about the best you can do sometimes there are no good options.

Right certainly seems that way right now Mike Barrett CEO diligent in innovations.

Joining us from DC great to see Mike thank you very much for your perspective.

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