RUSSIA / IRAN / SYRIA Faysal Itani, Fellow in the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council, and Hussein Ibish, Senior Resident Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, discuss with host Carol Castiel the implications of stepped up Iranian and Russian backing of Syrian President Bashar al Assad and how this affects the direction of the Syrian conflict, U.S. strategy, and the regional geopolitical landscape.