[Amanpour:] Welcome back. President Obama's speech to the nation last night highlighted his dilemma, which has been a confusing U.S. policy on Syria for the last 2.5 years, first resisting calls for military action to advocating the necessary strike to postponing now intervention. My next guest is former U.S. ambassador to Syria Ryan Crocker, and he says the U.S. has failed to grasp the historical fact. Make no mistake: the Assads, first with Hafez and now his son, Bashar, have been preparing for this war since the Hama massacre in 1982, says Crocker, when the army there killed some 20,000 civilians to stop an uprising by Syria's Muslim Brotherhood. The regime has known, has been preparing, says Crocker, for years, that a day of reckoning would come. I spoke to him earlier from Texas. Ambassador Crocker, thank you so much for joining me and welcome to the program. I want to start by asking you first, what did you make of President Obama's case in this Syrian crisis last night, in his address to the nation, because the critics have been vociferous and brutal. For instance, one critic has said that it was, quote, "very probably the least consequential vitally important speech ever." Your take on that, Ambassador.
[Ryan Crocker, Former Amb. To Syria:] I think we've got to keep a perspective on this. I think the president was right in saying we need to pursue this diplomatically. It is important overall that the Syrians have said, yes, we have chemical weapons and we're prepared to put them under international control. That is a step forward.
[Amanpour:] So given that they've done that and, again, I'm going to ask you, because of your deep knowledge of the players, whether you trust their words given that they have done that, how difficult is it going to be to execute this diplomacy to actually control and do all the things that they're saying should be done with the chemical weapons? And do you think Russia and Syria can be trusted to go to the very end with their promises?
[Crocker:] You know, we will have to see. A lot of this depends on Russia and a lot of it depends on Iran. And Iran has suffered from chemical weapons. They are no fans of them. So pressure from Tehran, pressure from Moscow will be critical in all of this. But none of us should think it will be decisive to the outcome of the war.
[Amanpour:] Interestingly, Iran was one of the first countries to support the Russian-Syrian plan to put these weapons under international control. But let me ask you this, another critic has said, in terms of the general policy, Jeffrey Goldberg, who is, as you know, formerly of "The Atlantic" and now a "Bloomberg View" columnist, he has said the following, "After two years of saying that Assad should go, the message now is that Assad can stay and that we just want to remove one of the weapons systems."
[Crocker:] I think we made a mistake right at the beginning in somehow thinking that Syria was like Egypt, like Tunisia, like Libya. You and I know it's not. The Syrian regime has been ready for this fight since Hama in 1982; very few Americans remember what happened then. You and I do, when up to 10,000 innocent Sunni civilians were murdered by Assad, the elder, in his effort to get rid of the Syrian Muslim Brothers. It radicalized the Sunni population and the regime knew that a day of accounting may come. And they've been ready for it for three decades. You know, Assad isn't going anywhere outside of Syria anytime soon, if ever. And maybe we're beginning to understand that.
[Amanpour:] Well, that is a really gloomy assessment, Ambassador. And obviously you know what you speak of. You were there as ambassador during the time that Hafez al-Assad died and Bashar al-Assad assumed the presidency. Explain what you mean by preparing for this moment.
[Crocker:] After Hama, Hafez al-Assad knew that there could be a Sunni day of retribution. And he and his son and his son is a just like the old man, maybe not quite as flexible and more doctrinaire, just as ruthless spent, again, three-plus decades building an intelligence, security and military apparatus that could withstand a Sunni revolt. They knew what they had done in Hama and that the day of backlash might come. They were ready for it, unlike Egypt, unlike Libya, unlike Tunisia. We didn't understand the difference.
[Amanpour:] Well, now that you're making that crystal clear and clearly the situation has made that crystal clear because after 2.5 years, Bashar al-Assad is still there what do you predict are the eventualities? Is he going to win? Is he going to stay in power? What are the alternatives? Is there a possibility of a political solution, as President Obama has said, to change the political dynamic?
[Crocker:] I think there are two alternatives. Either Assad regains control, foot by bloody foot, or it settles into some kind of stalemate. If it's the latter, then there might be a possibility for a diplomatic solution or stabilization. Now is not that time. I'm from the West of the United States, Christiane. We have giant forest fires; the one burning now in Yosemite. You can't extinguish them. You can only contain them. That's Syria. We can't extinguish that fight. Neither side is ready. All we can do is try and contain it and keep it from spreading further into Lebanon, into Iraq, into Jordan, into Turkey. That's the best we can do right now and wait for circumstances to change.
[Amanpour:] Do you think this diplomatic initiative is going to work? And will President Obama, by what he's done and the way he's delivered his speech in his address to the nation, will he then be able to resort to a military strike if necessary down the line if this diplomacy simply is a stalling tactic and not true? Christiane, first, I think we already have a success. Whatever happens next, we have the Russians and Iranians on record as saying that Syria should put its chemical weapons under international control. We have Syria acknowledging it has such weapons and it is prepared to do so. So whatever happens or doesn't happen, I think on the international level, this has been a significant positive step towards reinforcing the international position that chemical weapons should never be used. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, thank you very much indeed for joining us with your unique insight.
[Crocker:] Thank you, Christiane.
[Amanpour:] But of course did the world implicitly enable this use of chemical weapons by not responding to the horrors of the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein gassed Iranians and unleashed poisonous chemicals on his own Kurdish population in the village of Halabja, killing thousands of them? Our CNN cameraman, Rich Brooks, was an eyewitness, and he offers his riveting first-hand account of a chemical weapons attack when we return. But before we take a break, just back in March this year on the 25th anniversary of the Halabja massacre, on this program we remembered the victims and the ominous implications for Syria. Take a look. Today, Halabja's dead are remembered in monuments and memorials. But they cry out for more than tears. They want justice. And meanwhile on Iraq's western border, another brutal regime, that of Bashar al-Assad of Syria, has stockpiled chemical weapons. Will he use them? That was in March. And now we know the answer. We'll be right back.