This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Well, for the first time in the lifetime of most Syrians, they have a chance to shape their own future and to participate in forming some kind of government that will come together in the coming months and years in Syria. And that's unprecedented. That opportunity has never been possible for them before. 

I think what we're seeing is potentially the most consequential reshaping of the strategic landscape in the region since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. And I say that because since the US invaded Iraq in 2003, Iran has gradually expanded its role in the region to the point that it has become a major regional power. It was assisted in that effort by its close relationship with the Assad regime and by its relationship with Hezbollah in Lebanon, its leading and most powerful proxy force. Now, Hezbollah has been weakened by a year of Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, the Assad regime is gone, one of Iran's principal allies, and so we are witnessing really the rollback of Iran's regional position on a scale and at a pace that I think was really unimaginable just a few weeks ago. 

There's lots of reasons, I think, to be cautious about HTS, the group that led a rebel coalition in the overthrow of the Assad regime. It is a designated terrorist organization. Its leader is someone who fought against the US in Iraq and was detained in Iraq and HTS itself has its origins in al-Qaida, in Syria. However, in recent years, HTS has been the governing authority in Idlib province, which remained under opposition control from the outset of Syria's civil war. And it has governed in a fashion that I think outsiders should view with some reassurance. It has not imposed a draconian form of Islamic rule. It has not forced women to wear abayas. It has not restricted listening to music. It has assembled a proto state, the Syrian Salvation Government, that has been pragmatic and far less ideological than the groups out of which HTS sprang.