The Daily Beast columnist Eli Lake provided analysis on the situation in Syria and the possibility of providing lethal aid to the rebels Tuesday on MSNBC.
Lake said the arming Syrian rebels poses a risk for the United States because of Russia's strong support for the Assad regime:
THOMAS ROBERTS: So when we talk about that, "vetted people of the Syrian opposition, vetted groups" we're hearing that from McCain's people today. There are rebels who can be trusted but then there are those that cannot. We still have the violence spilling over in the region. So isn't the clock really ticking for the president to decide, it might better, it is necessary to be decisive. Maybe not always right when it comes to this issue.
ELI LAKE: Well, I mean you want to be right and decisive. But I would say there is still a great risk that the other side of the conflict right now is being armed by Russia. There is the potential at least because there are Russian military advisors on the ground with regime forces in Syria that any kind of further escalation or U.S. weaponry that gets in the hands of rebels could end up potentially at least killing a Russian national and creating something of a hot conflict between Russia and the United States inside Syria. That's something that I think Obama has been very worried about behind the scenes for a long time which is why Kerry is doing so much to try to entice the Russians to drop their significant support for Bashar al-Assad.