Hillary Clinton Sees No Place for Assad in Syria's Future

The biggest question surrounding Kofi Annan's new plan for a unified government in Syria that he debuted on Saturday is whether Bashar al-Assad will be included. Hillary Clinton, for one, doesn't think so.

The biggest question surrounding Kofi Annan's new plan for a unified government in Syria that he debuted on Saturday is whether Bashar al-Assad will be included. Hillary Clinton, for one, doesn't think so.

Speaking after the U.N. meeting in Geneva where Annan officially made his pitch, Clinton said for the plan to work Assad has got to go. "Assad will still have to go," Clinton told reporters after the meeting. "What we have done here is to strip away the fiction that he and those with blood on their hands can stay in power." British foreign secretary William Hague agreed with her, but unsurprisingly Russia did not.

Annan said he's "optimistic" about his new idea, but conventional wisdom and U.S. intelligence says Assad isn't going anywhere. It's the only option on the table, which makes it the best option, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work.