Former UN ambassador: What's the 'end game' for Syria?

On Thursday, the United States signed a deal with Turkey to work together in arming and training moderate Syrian rebels to serve as ground forces against ISIS and potentially the Assad regime in Syria.

The two countries have been in talks for several months.  Last fall, Congress voted to appropriate $500 million for the operation.

“What’s the game plan here?  I think there’s a lot more explaining that needs to be done,” says Nancy Soderberg, a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton and University of North Florida visiting scholar.

Soderberg says the Obama Administration needs to determine the bigger enemy in Syria: ISIS or the Assad regime.

“No force can take on both at the same time,” she says.

Overthrowing the Assad regime is years away, according to Soderberg, and the U.S. has not appropriated nearly enough money to achieve that goal right now.  President Obama said in 2011 that President Assad must go, but he remains in power today.

“I think the administration has to do a better job of explaining how we’re going to restore the territorial integrity of Syria to rid the country of ISIS,” she says.

Soderberg thinks the Syrian rebels should first be sent to do missions in Iraq because the U.S. has worked closely over the years with the Iraqi Army and the Kurds.  She wants to know what the administration’s “end game” is for Syria, especially considering the U.S. already coordinating airstrikes against ISIS within the country.