I'm John Batchel with my good colleague Jonathan Shanzer, who helps me understand a moving

landscape. No more moving in the Middle East than Syria. Within these last days, Jonathan mentions Turkey.

Russia is reported to have officers of the Russian army touring southern Syria and in Damascus, invited by,

we believe, the government of a man named Al-Shara. At the same time, Al-Sharra is negotiating with the U.S.,

you remember that meeting in the White House a week past. Al-Shar sitting in the chair of Muhammad bin Salman is sitting in.

Al-Shar is saying the Israelis must leave, and therefore everything can happen.

At the same time, the U.S. is negotiating for access to an airbase in Syria,

perhaps near Damascus, perhaps to the northeast toward the Kurds.

At the same time, there was talk of Turkey getting an air base in central Syria.

And if this isn't complicated enough, there is said to be a trial underway of the security

forces who were responsible or participated in the massacre of Druze at the Suwaita province

earlier this year. To my knowledge, there's no investigation underway for the

Alawite massacre, but it could follow. All of this is a lot of showmanship. Where's it going,

Jonathan? It looks chaotic. It is chaotic, John. Look, the easiest way that I can describe this is

that Syria is barely controlled by Abu Muhammad al-Jolani,

Ahmad al-Shara. This is a man that is under immense strain right now. There is a tug of war

that is occurring right now, primarily between the Saudis and the Emirates on one side, the pragmatic Arab states

and the Turks and the Qataris on the other.

These are the Muslim Brotherhood supporting states.

Ahmed al-Shara is somewhere in between.

He is working now to try to get – and he's actually with some success.

He's gotten Syria off of the international sanctions by the Brits.

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