that's all for us tonight. one programming note, jake tapper will be back here 11:00 p.m. eastern an hour from now with special live report, "crisis in syria, the debate begins." anderson cooper "360" starts right now. good evening everyone. welcome to a special edition of "ac 360." i'm anderson cooper, for this hour, we'll dig deeper into the issues before congress. the question lawmakers and the american people are asking right now, should the united states launch a military strike against syria for the chemical weapons attack that killed 1400 people, hundreds that were children? we'll talk about what's at stake as the region and the world wait for what is next. we begin with the breaking news tonight, multiple sources say

tomorrow the senate foreign relations committee will take up a revised bill authorizing the use of force in syria. that word is coming from multiple sources after today's hearing where the obama administration made its case for military action to the committee. our chief congressional correspondent dana bash has been speaking with lawmakers all evening and joins me now live. dana, you were the first to obtain the revised authorization bill. what do we know about snit >> we know that it seeks to assuage the concerns of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, what the white house sent to congress over the weekend is simply too broad. so here's what it would do. it would limit this authorization to a very finite period of time, 60 days with an option for the president to come back and ask for 30 days extension. and then also it would make very clear in black and white in the law that there would be no combat troops on the ground in syria. as you heard from the hearing today, for 3 1/2 hours, several of the senators were trying to

ask secretary kerry about that. he kind of fumbled the answer at the beginning but at the end he tried to make it abundantly clear that is not the goal of the administration. so we'll see this inside the senate foreign relations committee tomorrow. they're going to debate it. and then there could be a vote in this committee with a goal sending it to the full senate earlier next week. >> so it looks like the senate, democratically led, is likely to vote in favor of the president. what about the house? obviously you now have speaker boehner and eric cantor saying that they would support it, they're on board. what about the rest of the house? >> the house is notoriously more unpredictable than the senate, and it is not any different in this case. never mind that is run by republicans, but in this particular case, part of the issue that the president has is with his own party. you have a lot more anti-intervention i

anti-interventionist, anti-war democrats. but the fact that the house speaker endorsed this is huge, because he generally sits on the sidelines with things that are controversial, and he didn't do that in this case. he actually -- little known fact, the speaker usually doesn't vote. in this case he suggested that he would take a vote. will that sway the republicans who are isolationists? certainly not. but there are plenty of republicans in the house that are on the fence that could say maybe this is something i should do. >> dana, appreciate the reporting. a lot to talk about tonight. joining me live is john king, ann marie slaughter, who served at the state department under hillary clinton who started a new job as president and ceo of the new american foundation. fouad ajami also joins me. and "new york times" op-ed columnist charles blow. do you think the authorization that the white house put forward it was too broad, it allowed too much executive action?

>> i think it was an ideal opening bid. i think they knew that they were going to get pushed back and what they wanted was something that gave them enough room to strike, to punish assad for using chemical weapons. but also to degrade his forces enough to deter him and to stop him from being able to do this again. >> do you feel like you know what the military action will look like? i mean, what the objective actually is? >> you know what? i don't. but i consoled by the fact nor does president obama or the joint chiefs of staff. there's an uncertainty with war. you just interviewed ray kroccer, one of the great diplomats. he's been our ambassador in lebanon and syria and afghanistan, one of the very best. and he told us, we don't know syria. this is a man, if anybody knows syria, it's ray kroccer.

it was this dictatorship, it was this black box. to the extent the obama administration was interested in syria, it began in 2009, 2010 with ten senator john kerry as the pointman, courting the presidency and the regime of bashar al assad. >> if we don't know syria, according to the ambassador, should we be launching missiles into it? >> i think that's the question that the administration is facing when it comes to persuading the public. persuading the lawmakers is one thing, that's going to be a difficult task. the public is dead set against this. most have not been paying close attention to syria. fewer than 1 in 5 for the last two years have said that they pay very close attention to syria. there's another problem when the public comes into this discussion, which is that the trust in government is so eroded at this point. so we had a spike in trust in

government after 9/11. it had been climbing in the clinton administration. it shot up to 60% when people thought the government did the right things most of the time. that number is now to less than 20% of the population. people do not trust the government to do the right things. therefore, you have to sell them on a place that they're really familiar with, a situation they had not been following very closely, in an action they do not want to do because they got burned the last time they did it. >> i want to play some video of secretary kerry, who sort of fumbled the answer about boots on the ground initially. let's play that. >> i didn't find that a very appropriate response regarding boots on the ground. i do want to say that that's an important element to me. i hope that as we, together, work through this, we work through something that's much clearer than the answer you gave.

>> let me be very clear now, because i don't want anything coming out of this hearing that leaves any door open to any possibility. so let's shut that door now as tight as we can. >> so clearly now this new resolution saying no boots on the ground. do you think the president made headway today? >> the president made headway because number one, the speaker and the majority leader coming on board with the republicans. nancy pelosi also getting out. the republican leader in the senate is laying back. the leadership in the house, the republicans and democrats, getting out front early, they say they're not going to twist arms, but nancy pelosi sent a dear colleague letter to her anti-war liberals saying the folks back home don't support this, i'm going out ahead of my people. i had some communication tonight with some sources who say the speaker, the majority leader

helps a little bit, but the president has to do more. and welcome to american politics and welcome to the fact that these guys are on the ballot in 2014. the iraq vote in 2002, the safe vote was yes. that was the mood of the country. syria, 2013, the safe vote is no. so to get more of these votes, the president needs to move some of the polling. he doesn't have to get 60% of support, but a lot of lawmakers, especially republicans who have no love loss for this administration, they don't think there's a clearly defined military objective, at least yet, they need to see some movement in the folks back home. so the public hearing today is step one. the president is overseas right now. if the senate is going to vote on friday or wednesday and the house is going to vote at the end of the week, the president has very -- a short window to move it, and he's going to be overseas much of it. is he going to make the case to the american people while he's

with vladamir putin. >> you both support military action. you're not so sure. >> yeah. i am just not convinced of what the endgame is here, and i'm not convinced that the administration has worked all that out. i'm not convinced we don't exacerbate the problem by dropping bombs, particularly the refugee problem. syria is a very small country. 22 million people. put it in perspective, that's about the size of the new york metropolitan area. that's a very small space. do people sit still while bombs rain down on them for 60 or 90 days or do they flee more into jordan? >> this is the question. this is the question, and to charles' point about trust in america. the american people just went through the iraq war.

we were told we would be greeted as liberators. they are in skeptical about involvement in the middle east because the current president made his name in politics by saying we need to get out of the middle east. maybe it's happening in the classified briefings. that's the one thing we did not get in the public meeting today. what is the goal of the military operation? >> it keeps shifting. the first we hear of this is we need to punish assad for using chemical weapons on its own people, be limited in scope and duration, what have you. this is not what we're hearing today. this is not what we've heard the last couple of days. it's a lot of if thens, a lot of dominos falling. if you don't stand up to the bully, how will the other kids on the playground respect you? >> this is not just a bully. he's killed 100,000 over two

years. there's been plenty of atrocities. journalists say they haven't seen anything this bad in their entire careers. he used chemical weapons. just imagine, you die by what you need to live. you breathe, you die, your family dies. >> why is chemical weapons the red line? why isn't 100,000 dead from conventional weapons enough? >> because they are weapons of mass destruction, right? it's 1,000 today. it could be 10,000 tomorrow at one go. it could be 50,000. >> so to you that is a real red line? >> absolutely. it is a weapon of mass destruction. he cannot only win this war, but create unbelievable ethnic cleansing. i any that's what he's trying to do. once you use chemical weapons and you come back in, people will flee. so there is an actual order of magnitude difference between these kinds of weapons, which is why they've been outlawed for

100 years, and what else he's done. and the goal is to make clear that he doesn't do that again, and to degrade his abilities. >> i would have drawn my line on the use of air power, because it guess what? because in 1937, the german and italian bombers bombed a town of 7,000 people. assad used air power to destroy aleppo and homs and we did nothing ant it. we didn't draw a line. part of the problem for this administration is that for 30 years -- for 30 months in that dilemma, the administration didn't say much about syria. the president was virtually silent on syria. and now we have come to the syria debate with this passion. it's this newly discovered passion and we have to be honest. the syrian whom you have been talking to and dealing with, was

he encouraged, was he discouraged? he was not a man who saw this new phase as a kind of bright, new spot for the syrian people. we're doing this bombing now because we said we would. we have to rescue the president of the united states. >> you think that's what it's really about? >> we have to rescue the presidency. we cannot do -- >> so this isn't about syria? you're say thing is rescuing president obama basically for an off handed remark he made about a red line a year ago? >> i don't want to go that far. i think we are doing this, all of a sudden we discovered, look, this crisis has burned and we're talking about refugees leaving syria, 7 million people with displacement. 1 million children have left syria on their own. 740,000 under 11 years of age. and hell came to jordan, iraq

and lebanon and trouble came to turkey and we were not stirred. >> when you hear from kerry today, the opposition is becoming more moderate, you say -- you've always defended the opposition all along throughout this, but you say that sudden realization that's just salesmanship? >> i think if 100,000 people are willing to die to retrieve their liberty from the house of assad, they're not go fog give their liberty to al qaeda and jihadists. we have seen many towns in syria that have rebelled against al qaeda and against the muslim front. but i am sick and tired about hearing about the muslim front. the syrian people are not fighting and dying to give it to them. 15 months ago, you were in the refugee camps in turkey. the fighters came at the end of -- on friday, they came to visit their families in these tents. and to come back, they were ordinary syrians. they were not jihadists. >> i know charles you want to

get in here. we'll have more with our panel. the discussion is going to continue and we'll get into what support, if any, the united states can expect internationally. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] what's important to you? at humana, our medicare agents sit down with you and ask. being active. and being with this guy. [ male announcer ] getting to know you

is how we help you choose the humana medicare plan that works best for you. mi familia. ♪ [ male announcer ] we want to help you achieve your best health, so you can keep doing the things that are important to you. taking care of our customers. taking care of her. and the next thing on our list is bungee jumping. [ male announcer ] helping you -- now that's what's important to us. [ male announcer ] helping you -- everybody has different ideas, goals, appetite for risk. you can't say 'one size fits all'. it doesn't. that's crazy. we're all totally different. ishares core. etf building blocks for your personalized portfolio. find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. ishares by blackrock. call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus, which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. read and consider it carefully before investing. risk includes possible loss of principal. these chevys are moving fast. i'll take that malibu. yeah excuse me. the equinox in atlantis blue is mine! i was here first. it's mine. i called about that one. it's mine.

customers: [ echoing ] it's mine, mine, mine. it's mine! no it's not! it's mine! better get going. it's the chevy labor day sale. [ male announcer ] the chevy labor day sale. just announced: $500 labor day cash now through september 3rd on most 2013 chevrolet vehicles!

as the pressure mount information washington, the denials continue. an exclusive interview with christiane amanpour, he said

allegations about the syrian government using chemical weapons are false and unfounded. she wasn't going to let that go by. listen. >> the british, the french, the united states, sir, the british, the french, the united states all say that chemical weapons have been used as you say, but they have been used by your government, because the opposition simply does not have access to the delivery systems, to the wherewithal and the spoke piles. and it's hard to believe that people are gassing themselves. so this is a major problem with your argument. it sounds like the syrian government is afraid. all of a sudden you are all out giving interviews, you talking to me, others are talking to other journalists. i'm trying to figure out, you believe, don't you, that there is going to be a major u.s. strike on your military facilities? >> christiane, the reports

emanating from usa, france and britain, could not be taken seriously and they are not credible. because these three governments are deeply involved in the syrian crisis. >> sir -- >> back now with our fan. charles, you wanted to say something? >> kind of uncomfortable with the idea that we have to take military action to kind of rescue the president. so -- >> you don't believe that? >> i'm not saying that's not what's happening. i think it's an easier case to sell on moral grounds. this is a catastrophe, this is an atrocity that happened in this country. whether or not our enemies come oh our aid, we have as a country deem this to be something we find as a moral obligation to do. >> if you're going to make the moral argument, wasn't the time to make that when they were torturing small children? >> i think all the timing is off here. i think we're painted into a box. even this resolution that is

before the armed services -- before the committee is painting into a further box. when you say there will be no boots on the ground and you say that you will be out in 60 days or maybe you have an option for another 30, you're painting yourself into another box, because you have no idea what hezbollah will do. you have no idea what iran will do. you will have idea what russia will do. we are expecting us to sit back. kerry said this is not a conventional war. but what is a conventional war? >> kerry talk eed about this re line idea. i just want to play that sound. >> some have tried to suggest that the debate we're having today is about president obama's red line. i could not more forcefully state that is just plain and simply wrong. this debate is about the world's red line. it's about humanity's red line. and it's a red line that anyone

with a conscience ought to draw. >> if it is the world's red line, where is the world on this? we know where france is. we now know where england is. where is the rest of the arab world? >> the arab league made an incredibly strong statement staying that assad had to be punished for using chemical weapons. for the arab league, that was an extraordinary statement. >> in terms of actual cooperation. >> i think we're going to get a lot of cooperation from saudi arabia, turkey, jordan. some will be public, some will be under the table. but i don't think this is about the president's red line. this is a weapon of mass destruction, like nuclear weapons. we have iran there. we're telling iran they can't have weapons of mass destruction. this is the ability of a government to wipe out tens of thousands of people. >> so you think if the united states does not act on this use of a weapon of mass destruction, it makes israel feel like, are

you going to have israel's back? it's not just obama's credibility, it's the united states' credibility? >> absolutely. >> i accept the point, but it may be about all those red lines. but it's also about the president's red line. he is the one that has to make the decision. part of the complication in this debate, is if the president loses the vote, he still says he has the authority to act and there are people at the white house who say his credibility is now at stake. the credibility of the united states is at stake. so he probably would act. there are many people in the house of representatives, and rand paul brought it up, if you want us to take this stuff vote, why don't you give the respect to us that the prime minister of the uk gave to the british parliament, saying i'll consider it binding. >> we have some of the argument

rand paul was making. can we play that? we'll get that bite shortly. >> i think that also raises another interesting point here, which is a constitutional point, which is about the executive branch and the legislative branch. the president wants buy-in. he may not get it. but if he does not get buy-in on this, can you imagine another president ever going to congress with the same sort of request for use in the same sort of force? it sets a precedent for the presidency. i think in that regard, sit a long-term strategy. i think the president is a very smart tacticianer in that way. he is concerned ant the power of the executive branch and knows he will either get his way on this or the presidency will win because the next president will say, i'm not going to go through that hassle. >> if you go into this with all the parameters set in advance, no boots on the ground, 60 days,

another 30 days, what is to stop assad from using chemical weapons again, saying what is the u.s. going to do now? is there going to be an escalation? >> i don't think much escalation lies in store was. this man's army is in lamentable expression. the syrians call the army that slivers. that army is nothing. we've gone through. when we did bosnia, they said the serbs, they are warriors. we did two wars against the serbs in bosnia and kosovo and didn't lose a single soldier. we said the same thing about saddam. best army in the region. we lost 150 soldiers in the war against saddam hussein. bashar al assad, they are good

at killing women and children and fighters who are badly armed. i think the war is going to be -- it's going to be a very different kind of war for assad. but the question remains, what will we get out of this war? if we set the parameters so tight and so limited, what are we hope for? the american people are not being told what this war is about. >> the administration is not using the w word, they're not using the word war. is this a war? >> no. >> you're using military force against another sovereign nation. >> the american presidents have used force like this over 200 times in the past century and a half without going to congress. it is a use of force short of anything that we require a declaration of war. that said, i think as charles said, this president was a constitutional lawyer. he said back in may that it was

time to get out of the permanent state of war we've been in since 9/11, and he is, i think, trying to say look, we need to be back on a footing where when the president decides to use force, he ought to go and make that case to the american people. >> let's listen to that rand paul discussion. >> if the united states of america doesn't do this, senator, is it more or less likely that assad does it again? do you want to answer that question? >> i don't think it's known. i think it's unknown -- >> it's unknown? senator, it's not unknown. if the united states of america doesn't hold him accountable on this, with our allies and friends, it's a guarantee assad will do it again. a guarantee. >> do you believe that? that it's a guarantee assad will do it again? >> i do. in fact, i say assad has been carefully testing us. he used chemical weapons first at christmas, then he used them

in the spring. we said, well, he can't use them systematically. the timing of this was incredible. it was the middle of august when the president's on vacation, where everybody is out. if you were trying to see what you could get away with, this is exactly what you would do. i absolutely think if we don't do anything, he will continue. >> there was a report today saying the first cia trained opposition fighters are now infiltrating into syria. is there a whole covert action that we -- that the american people do not know about? >> we've been training special forces, if you will, in jordan. the jordanians are very discrete about this. they lie right next to bashar. they don't want to fight him, particularly they don't want to fight him unless they see the americans have made a decision to completely destroy him. so we are ftrying to help. in june, we promised we would

promise them with lethal weapons and assistance and none of that happened. and now in response to the demands of senator mccain and lindsey graham, now there is a promise we will do better. we will not only bomb for chemical weapons, but we'll upgrade the capabilities of the opposition. there are now three capitals being lumped together in terms of casting for a definition, and a purpose for this war, damascus, tehran and pyongyang. >> isn't that the axis of evil? >> the idea of a mission that, to me, is problematic in the sense that this -- america has enormous war machine. the d.o.d. is the biggest employer in the world. we spend more on defense than

the next ten countries combined. that beast stays hungry. the idea when we talk about a limited kind of operation, and it's about this next country and the next one, set thing example, that example. that becomes problematic for people who kind of remember the selling of the last war. not that these are comparable wars or comparable presidents. but that has stuck in people's mind and it becomes a problem for the selling of this action. >> i just make one point ant the limited nature of the resolution. it's to constrict the administration and it's on the theory that assad accepts his punishment. in the sense that if he lashes out against israel, the president will get all the latitude he needs. with the president overseas with this debate entering its final

phase, this is an enormous test of him at this moment. this is his decision. this defines him. because of the timing where it is in his second term, if it goes well and standing is improved, he stretches out his effectiveness in a second term. if he loses and is weakened, everything in washington is determined by the president's political standing. so his second term, you're already heading into the midterm elections. >> so if you're saying if this goes badly, he's gone? >> he could be done. this is a very important national security challenge. so in some ways it's crass to talk about anything else. yet in the world we live in, the standing of the president of the united states determines the power and the flow of washington. because of the point he's at in his presidency, i would say it's even more important because of that. >> we've got to take another quick break. john king, charles blow, thank you very much for being here. ann marie slaughter and fouad ajami are going to stick around. we'll talk more about ahead what

it will take to prevent assad from carrying out more chemical attacks. we'll be right back. there's nothing like that feeling of getting something new. and now, with verizon edge, you can experience that new phone thrill, again, and again, and again. phil can you close your new phone box, we're picking up some feedback. every time you're ready to upgrade. having what you want on the 4glte network you rely on. that's powerful. upgrade to the motox by motorola with 0 down payment. ♪ ♪ ♪

[ male announcer ] the all-new 2014 lexus is. this is your move. jim, i adore the pool at your hotel.ver had to make.s is. anna, your hotels have wondrous waffle bars. ryan, your hotels' robes are fabulous. i have twelve of them. twelve? shhhh, i'm worth it& what i'm trying to say is, it's so hard to pick just one of you, so i'm choosing all of you with hotels.com. a loyalty program that requires no loyalty. plus members can win a free night every day only at hotels.com

vietnam in 1972. [ all ] fort benning, georgia in 1999. [ male announcer ] usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. because it offers a superior level of protection and because usaa's commitment to serve military members, veterans, and their families is without equal. begin your legacy, get an auto insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve.

welcome back. skeptical lawmakers want

reassurance from the white house that military force in syria will be effective without putting u.s. troops in harm's way. let's talk about what it would take for military action to be effective and whether there's anything short of boots on the ground will make a difference. i want to bring in christopher dicky, and dexter philkins. dexter, what do you make of what you heard today in terms of the actual military response? >> well, i mean, you can start with what the president doesn't want to do. he can't fire missiles at the chemical weapon sites themselves. he doesn't want to hurt the regi regime. he doesn't want to destroy the regime in damascus, because that would open up a power vacuum in the middle of a civil war. so what does that leave you with? it leaves you with attacking some of the units that used chemical weapons and fired them.

i think that's a tricky question, whether that's going to actually serve the purpose. >> but it does sound like there has been a growth in what the targets would be or what the desire is. >> doesn't it also include taking out his air force essentially. definitely doing what we can to stop him from delivering these weapons in a variety of different ways, which would degrade his ability to kill people with conventional weapons. >> we can guess at that, but nobody was saying that today. they talk about deter and degrade, then the minute you get close to a question like that, it's like, we'll have to go into the classify briefings for that. so we don't really have a clue what he's going to do. it could be as ineffectual as the countless punitive raids carried out against various countries over the year or a real shift in power.

>> you were not a proponent of the idea of a strike. did you think that the proposal by the white house was too broad? now there's language narrowing it. >> i think the narrower it gets, the more pointless it becomes. he was asking for something in the initial proposal that would have given him the leeway to wage a pretty extensive war on the infrastructure of assad's military. now you can see, and you can see during the testimony today, you can see that several congressman are trying to pull that back and squeeze him and say no boots on the ground. we're going to limit the amount of time this is going to go on, and although i don't think this is a war that the president wants, i don't think he wants to go into it under any circumstances in which he's that contrained. >> do you think the u.s. has gamed out what assad's response will be? >> i don't think we have the

slightest idea. >> we should remember the israelis have attacked twice, three times over the past six months and assad made all sorts of things and they did nothing. the israelis attacked missile sites and assad did little. so partly we're looking at what's actually happened and the fact that if he does anything really major, as we just said then, then congress is going to give the president the authority to retaliate. >> i think it's much more likely he'll retaliate on his own people. >> after 90 days. >> not even. the greatest -- i can't say it on the air, but the greatest way to say go to hell to the administration is to use chemical weapons again. >> even if he retaliates without chemical weapons, it doesn't seem like there's anything the united states is going to do about that, as long as he doesn't use chemical weapons, hex slaughter x number of

people. >> the remarkable luck of barack obama, which moved barack obama from being barack obama to the presidency of the united states may still be there for him in this war. many things could happen. the course of battle is very obscure, it's unknown to us all, unknown to bashar, unknown obama. we could -- at the end of the day, we might get bashar al assad and some of the elements to have regime that run that terrible regime. then the course of battle will open up and it may be that the sunnis of damascus, because remember, the regime has won and lost in other places. damascus is where this mafia is invested. it may be the sunnis may find the courage, and if indeed these strikes are successful, nobody knows. >> i want to bring in former commander of the "uss cole."

commander, how likely to you see that the assad regime and hezbollah allies will attempt retribution if the u.s. attacks? >> i think it's very likely, anderson. when you look at israel, while there's been no reaction to their attacks, they live in the region, they know the region and people know how israel is going to respond. the united states, however, is seen differently. we're a large target and have been for some time. they've seen where we can be attacked and sometimes we react, sometimes we don't. i would expect if we attack the assad regime, they're going to respond back. i think you're even going to see hezbollah playing a role in this aided and abetted by russia, supplying arm suppose the region. >> dexter, you covered the war in iraq on the ground. how do you see this war as being different? not the war that it's about to occur but the war that's been occurring, the battle on the ground? >> well, i mean, if you look at it in the broadest terms, that's

not always the smart thing to do, but you have on one hand a murderous regime still in power, and the other a very fragmented opposition whose strongest member is basically an affiliate of al qaeda in iraq. it's the most radical group, they're the most effective. and they're still growing and doing strikes all over the country. so it's a mess on the ground. we talk about what you try to game out what's going to happen. i just have never had the sense that the president has any appetite for anything other than whack him really hard a couple of times, you know, slap him around, teach him a lesson, and then done. >> let's remember with libya. the president did not decide to do anything in libya until he was convinced he could do something that made a difference. what turned him around is he said wait a minute, i'm going to ask for enough room that i can actually stop the overrunning of

benghazi and change that. so i don't think he has any appetite for war, but i don't think he has any appetite for cosmetic strikes, either. what he's asking for is enough to stop assad from using chemical weapons again. and if he does, all bets are off. but we haven't talked about the political dimension. we have said from the beginning, the administration has said the only way to resolve this conflict is a political settlement. precisely because you don't want a decapitated regime with what's on the ground. so what they're hoping, and we can't say, but what they're hoping is we use force, we work with the russians, with everybody else. we get people to the negotiating people and -- >> commander, would you want to go into battle with a commander who doesn't really have an appetite for war when your enemy is a killer? >> i don't think anyone would want to do that. when he's committed as commander in chief, even barack obama, is

going to go in with the intent that we're going to achieve national security objectives. when you look how an attack might unfold, we already know where the weapons are kept. we know from intelligence intercepts how they directed these attacks. and based on that, then you start a rolling series of attacks and you look at where do we hit them where they can't move the weapons out? these are the kind of things that go on during this 60 or 90-day period. i think at the end of that, if we still felt there was need to keep going, congress is going to be more than willing to give the president the flexibility as the commander in chief to wage an effective war to make sure that we punish him, that he hasn't got the capability to continue to use these chemical weapons, because this is a red line, not just for the u.s. but for the world. if we're going to act, then we act decisively.

otherwise, don't get engaged at all. >> we have to take a quick break. up next, a brave syrian activist who called into this program to tell us about the violence in his country. twice he was jailed. i asked him what he thinks about a possible military strike against the assad regime. his answer may surprise you. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] this is jim,

a man who doesn't stand still. but jim has afib, atrial fibrillation -- an irregular heartbeat, not caused by a heart valve problem. that puts jim at a greater risk of stroke. for years, jim's medicine tied him to a monthly trip to the clinic to get his blood tested. but now, with once-a-day xarelto®, jim's on the move. jim's doctor recommended xarelto®. like warfarin, xarelto® is proven effective to reduce afib-related stroke risk. but xarelto® is the first and only once-a-day prescription blood thinner for patients with afib not caused by a heart valve problem. that doesn't require routine blood monitoring.

so jim's not tied to that monitoring routine. [ gps ] proceed to the designated route. not today. [ male announcer ] for patients currently well managed on warfarin, there is limited information on how xarelto® and warfarin compare in reducing the risk of stroke. xarelto® is just one pill a day taken with the evening meal. plus, with no known dietary restrictions, jim can eat the healthy foods he likes. do not stop taking xarelto®, rivaroxaban, without talking to the doctor who prescribes it as this may increase the risk of having a stroke. get help right away if you develop any symptoms like bleeding, unusual bruising, or tingling. you may have a higher risk of bleeding if you take xarelto® with aspirin products, nsaids or blood thinners. talk to your doctor before taking xarelto® if you have abnormal bleeding. xarelto® can cause bleeding, which can be serious, and rarely may lead to death. you are likely to bruise more easily on xarelto® and it may take longer for bleeding to stop. tell your doctors you are taking xarelto® before any planned medical or dental procedures. before starting xarelto®, tell your doctor about any conditions

such as kidney, liver, or bleeding problems. xarelto® is not for patients with artificial heart valves. jim changed his routine. ask your doctor about xarelto®. once a day xarelto® means no regular blood monitoring -- no known dietary restrictions. for more information and savings options, call 1-888-xarelto or visit goxarelto.com.

welcome back. many times during the long civil war in syria, this program spoke by phone to a syrian activist. in great peril to himself. he insisted that we actually use his real name and twice he's been jailed. he has since fled to beirut. he said the world has waited too long to help and the u.s. military action will only embolden the assad regime. >> a limited strike, this means a prolonged crisis. for me, even -- i wanted peace. i still want peace. i can see only a peace process that happens through geneva two. i don't know if that can happen or not.

a limited strike, i know the propaganda of the regime. they will say we defeated the international plot, we defeated zionism. they will use any possible word and dance in the streets. >> back with dexter filkins, ann marie slaughter. do you think he's right? >> oh, god, yes. of course that's what's going to happen. if you don't -- what doesn't kill assad makes him stronger. that's the pattern all over the middle east. it always has been. think of the lebanon war in 2006. eventually hezbollah managed to barely fight the israelis to a stand still. but it came out as a huge victor from that war. >> there's a potential problem. we've overestimated the strength of assad's forces.

one of the big problems about all of this is we have no certainty at all. we simply don't know somewhat's going to happen. >> there's been a massive airlift by the iranians that's basically bailed them out. >> the hezbollah fighters have made a significant difference on the ground. >> you have to bring them in openly. because they were slipping. >> what it comes down to in the arab world is if you survive, you win. ann marie, you've seen it a million times. even in the egyptian wars with the israelis. >> i think you've got to pick up on what nick said. why did he use chemical weapons? he's using them because his back is against the wall. they're now in damascus. the opposition was controlling a large parent of this suburb and he in the end had to use chemical weapons to get them out. so again, i'm not at all certain that -- >> is that really the reason?

>> i wouldn't rule out the possibility he used them to call the bluff of the united states. >> his situation is much better than it was six or eight months ago. so if it's using chemical weapons is a measure of desperation, he use less desperate now than he was back in january. that's why it's puzzling. >> you could also make the argument that it was designed to just sow terror and crush the opposition. you kill the women and children and it weakens the fighters at the front. >> they got the strategic town on the border, but if you look at the other cities around the country, they're still really hunkered down in aleppo, having a tough time. in damascus, they were being fought back. >> do you think the administration, which suddenly secretary kerry today was saying the opposition is actually there's a wave of moderation now

taking place in the opposition, whereas there had been reports about the muslim front. >> it's a romantic idea to support. there's an element within that rebel movement that is usable. but a year ago, that would have worked. in that gap they went from being disorganized to being fractured. you can't begin to explain how explain how complex this is. there's al qaeda fighting al qaeda, al qaeda fighting the kurds, rebels fighting the regime. there is no single military leader for the rebels right now. there's no concrete message coming out of them, which is why the hezbollah addition, and that feeling we had in the last six months works so effectively. >> that is why the administration is not saying we are doing this to tip the balance of the war, and this is not libya.

>> does the administration actually want the opposition to win? or do they just want this thing to go so long that they get exhausted? >> not tomorrow. there is no moderate group that's prepared to take over. >> this is one of those situation where is you have a great power or great powers working through their proxies, scoring points against each other and trying to prolong a war they don't want to end. do you see how cynical this is? >> i don't. >> oh, come on. >> explain that. >> i'm not staying that it's evil. i'm not saying they want people to die. but you're saying we have to wait until they're just tired of killing each other. we know from every one of these wars, i'm not saying this the good or bad, this is just what's happening. >> they preferred to see a slow war of extinction happen than to deal with the power of vacuum

that would be created. >> no, the policy is -- >> if all the choices are bad, why get involved? >> because he crossed a line. >> you don't believe that this is a line, that somebody cannot cross? >> i do believe there are a lot of reasons you can say this is a line you need to draw, because they can use chemical weapons for ethnic cleansing, these you can them to win the war. that they don't want. so the idea is you take that tool away from assad and you prolong the war. in the course of prolonging the war, maybe that is the best policy. maybe that is the best option. we should recognize the fact that 100,000 more people will die. >> chris, you've got to make choices. what's the choice then? what is snit >> i'm not advocate thing choice, but it's a choice a lot of americans are advocating, which is to stay the hell out. >> if that regime collapsed tomorrow, we know what would

happen. we saw nit baghdad. if the regime collapses, you have chaos and anarchy and it might take a decade to play itself out. so they don't want to do that. they don't want to destroy the regime for just that reason. >> there's no reason why the chemicals weapons become a game changer. but if you draw that line, the entire region has to have that recognition. >> but you also make clear that there are lines, that we are willing to use force. >> you're saying not just in syria, but any place for nuclear proliferation, other forms of proliferation. we have to end it there. thank you very much. we'll be right back.

that's it for us. thanks for watching. jake tapper starts now with a special hour on syria. >> all the president's men making the case for action. >> the world is watching. >> the word of the united states must mean something. >> pushing for military intervention in syria. but meeting with skepticism from the public and in the senate. >> make me proud today, secretary kerry. stand up for us and say you're going to obey the constitution. >>