Foreign Policy cites the Atlantic Council for hosting General Martin Dempsey at its Disrupting Defense conference:
Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Atlantic Council that even if the beleaguered Syrian opposition somehow ousted President Bashar al-Assad, a development that appears increasingly unlikely, the country would still be consumed with terror, chaos and starvation. “If Assad took his family and all of his cronies and departed Syria today, how does that country … articulate itself?” he asked.
Dempsey noted that the Syrian opposition maintains no governance structure to provide goods, services and security; no force capable of holding ground to administer aid and wage attacks against the regime; and no counterterrorism capability to root out al Qaeda-affiliated groups in the country. “And we’re not on a path currently to provide that,” he said.