All

right, so let's talk about the political landscape against which this took place. Scott, the biden administration, as you pointed out here, kina, wants to have it both ways, right? It's at the same time, this is the first time the united states is not at war in 20 years. And at the same time, look at our great victory. We just killed the head of isis. How are they splitting this difference? And, you know, is it credible?

It is definitely attention that i don't think the biin administration has a hundred % figured out how to split the difference in this particular one. You know, they have embraced the line repeatedly, rhetorically, that n tha the first moment in which he united states is not at war in the last 20 years. But of course, we're still engaging in hostile operations. We have this recent strike in syria or counterterrorism operation in syria. We've had drone strike in samalia, a handful of them, all happening at a much lower pace and lower density than happened under the trump administration, or really even under the bom administration. N that's part of a trajectory that's actually kind of predates bit in, but that bite nd appears to have accelerated exercising maybe a greater degree of scrutiny over what kind of targets and how frequently these tools are being used. But they're still being used, perhaps more importantly, depending on what metric you judge what a war is by, caue, there's no clear definition. Still have us troops in syria and in arak engaging and supporting with syrian democratic forces in syria and with the raki government at the rack. Are those part of a war time effort an a rack? I think you could very reasonably claim, look, these are people there at the invitation of the raki government. Their non combat rolls as of the end of last year, although their actual activities haven't changed that much, as far as we understand. So that may be one case. In the syria case, you know, these are troops deployed there against the wishes who is still the recognized leader of syria, more or less, the asad regime, right? They're there, not at the inmitation o te assad regime, but in spite of the objections of the osad regime, precisely to continue to combat the islamic state. And that's still the legal basis and the policy rational behind them being there. So i think it's a little hard to argue that, you know, we're not engaged in any sort of conflict anywhere, not to even get into, you know, samalia and the sahel and the other places whre yo se counterterrors an operations still happening. So, you knowt i think that my administrationis realy tring to make the point we'll know we're not, you know, out there occupying territory orproviding major troop presente. The thing that really got americans exhausted about war, which is that we kept seeing thousands and thousands of young men and women nd having to deploy and spend years of their lives in these foreign places. That has wont ground down to a halt. But a lot of the other s about what what constitute a war haven't really ended. And probably aren't going to end. In fact, may our, the bongministrations be quite intent on continuing, perhaps for very good reasons, you know. But that's going to cause tension with particularly the progressive left elements of the democratic party, and, frankly, some of the were libertary and right elements of the republican party, many of whom would like to see a much more constrained, even more constrained than by an administration, approach to the use of military force in these sorts ofr all

right, so hassan, walk us through the landscape of the area in which this strike took place.