[Anderson:] And just after half past 7:00 in the UAE. I'm Becky Anderson. This is our special coverage of the war in Syria. We have heard so many horrific numbers about the dead and wounded, the civilians forced to flee their homes. And children who've grown up knowing nothing but war. And yet as this conflict enters its eighth year, the world is still essentially a bystander. With Russia's help, the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, may eventually be able to win this brutal civil war that began as a peaceful uprising. But what kind of nation would be left for him to rule. CNN's Nic Robertson reports.
[Robertson:] President Bashar al-Assad has all the traits of an old school dictator. He is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians, but it's not how he sees himself.
[Bashar Al-assad, Syrian President:] My enemy is terrorism. The instability in Syria. This is our enemy. It's not about people. It's not about persons. The whole it's not about me staying or leaving. It's about the country being safe or not.
[Robertson:] To his loyal followers, Assad is a bulwark against a threat of radical Islamist terror. Before the war, many in the West thought he was a bulwark against instability sweeping the region. He trained and practiced as an eye doctor in London. Was thought to be more sophisticated than his brutal father, Hafez, whom he replaced 18 years ago. But it was a sham. When faced with peaceful protest, he called in the tanks. Assad had never expected to lead Syria. His tougher older brother, Bassel, who had been groomed to be president died in a car crash in 1994. Once the civil war got under way, Assad's family, in particular his younger brother, Maher, a feared military commander, stiffened his resolve for a long, bloody fight. Iran and their Lebanese proxies added their punch, backing Assad's forces with weapons and troops. Then, Russia, detecting a lack of Western will, flew to Assad's rescue with massive air power, turning a tide of battlefield losses to strategic gains. While hospitals were crushed, and civilians starved and pulverized under their brutal bombing, areas under Assad's control escaped the worst ravages of the war. Compare the center of the capital, Damascus, Assad's official home, with Eastern Ghouta less than ten miles away. In his rare appearances, Assad, occasionally accompanied by his wife, appears unruffled by the mayhem they are spawning and in even rarer interviews, he sounds as callous as he is blind to the facts under his knows. This, in 2011.
[Assad:] The only thing that you could be afraid of as president to lose the support of your people. That's the only thing that you can be afraid of.
[Robertson:] And this, six years, hundreds of thousands of deaths later.
[Assad:] The suffering of the Syrian people, the humanitarian interaction between me and every city and my family who died, who only died. This is the only thing that could deprive me from sleep from time to time. But not the Western statements and not the threat of the support of the terrorists.
[Robertson:] Despite unanimous U.N. Agreement to transition Assad out of power, peace talks in Geneva are failing to unseat him because he is winning the war. His big backers, Iran and Russia, have too much to lose to let him go. Assad may bridle at the moniker dictator, but no other world leader now in power has so much of his countrymen's blood on his hands.
[Anderson:] A conflict that has raged today for seven long years, Nic joining us now live with more. He is currently in London. And Nic, what is next for Bashar al-Assad and what's next for Syria?
[Robertson:] In the immediate term it looks like more of the same. Certainly, it doesn't seem that he's about to leave power. The sort of transition if you could call it that or the adoption or add-ons of something different in the way to run Syria as the Russians would see it, would be some of the very weak opposition figures. Obviously, that's something that the United States, Great Britain, their allies and partners believe is not a tangible lasting solution, in Syria. Because it would just if you don't have a more balanced leadership of the country that's agreed by all parties on all sides in this war, if you don't have that, then the peace won't last, and it will all break down and the fighting will continue. So, in the near term, more war, Assad continues to hold onto power. It's not even clear, even if Russia was to suggest to him it's time to move on, that he would do that. The expectation is he would call on Iran to weigh in even stronger in his favor. But there really isn't a hint of it. At the moment, you get the sense that Russia wants to move the U.N. Peace talks in Geneva on to their own territory. Manage them in the way that they'd like to manage them. We're not expecting any change in any of this until after President Putin's reelection. That's coming up this weekend. And beyond that, now, I think with the changing international scene towards Russia at the moment, Russia is going to be less willing and less open to the West views on what should happen in Syria. We know that the United States is beginning to make stronger statements about the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Absent real moves towards peace. And there aren't any. It's more war, more of the same.
[Anderson:] Well, that's a depressing picture, Nic Robertson is painting but sadly it seems a very true one. Nic Robertson is in London for you today. Now this war is so massive that well, you need to go up, way up to catch it. Into space. We've got some satellite photos to show you now. This Homs before the war. Bright colors from trees and cars, large buildings, busy streets, it looks like anywhere. A living city and then fast forward to well, right now. Streets turned into gun ranges, houses into hideouts, Homs in gray scale covered in the shattered dust of its own destruction, and it's not just in Syria. Here, an empty patch of desert in Jordan where we just were with Jomana, now the site of a sprawling refugee camp, population some 80,000. We can find many more images like that and incredible insight tracking Syria's descent into what seems like "HELL ON EARTH" on CNN.com. That is CNN.com. Coming up, the chemical weapon Novichok is making headlines after the U.K. says it was used to poison an ex-Russian spy and his daughter. We'll hear from the American reporter who broke the story of the deadly nerve agent's existence. That's next.