Russian public defender says the plans can succeed only if washington and its allies rule out action. The sek tate of state will head to sisser land. The two leaders are expected to talk in geneva on thursday. And syria zillion having a big impact on the oil market. Crude futures falling more than 2 today. Oil reach a 28 month high on friday. Thats the news at this hour, aljazeera. Com is next. The president takes his case for a strike only syria directly to the American People. If we fail to act, the asaad regime will have no ran to stop using chemical weapons. This is not a world we should accept. And the nation responds, an american tonight special town hall presentation, the syria debate. With voices here in washington, d. C. , across america, and around the world. Hello and welcome to al jazeera, special coverage of the syria debate, we are here at america ton town hall special coverage and joining me here is antonio. Of consider this, im joey chen. Throughout this evening we are looking at the president s comments but the comments from all of our viewers around the world and in our audience here. We want to begin with what the president had to say, as he tried to make his case directly to the American People. He began by making statements about his own interests and trying to keep peace around the world, but at acknowledged the importance of the u. S. Military and its strength, and he made particular mention of what the military might be able to do in syria. Theres no point in doing a pin prick strike in say yeah. Let me make something clear. The United States military doesnt do pin pricks. Even a limited strike will send a message to asaad that no other nation can deliver. I dont think we should remove another dictator with force. We learned from iraq that doing so makes us responsible for all that comes next. By a targeted strike can make asaad or any oh dictator think twice before using chemical weapons. There are many Fast Breaking developments oen the story, and joining us here in the studio is america tonight, correspondent who has been closely following the story. There is some breaking news tonight, that is about what will happen next in terms of a resolution. There is a u. N. Resolution putter forward by the french that has gone to the Security Council tonight, that resolution gives syria 15 days to make a full and complete disclosure of all its chemical weapons. That includes stock piles of weapons that it has, and also include precursors. So what does that mean . Full and complete disclosure . Has that been the sticking point. That is part of the process of signing up to the Chemical Weapons Convention. So under the way that it works you say what you have, you let inspectors in who verify that you have said that this is what you have. They have to cross check, inventories and shipments talk to scientists try and figure out exactly what you have, when you made it, where it is, syria is already on the record today through their foreign minister, as saying they are prepared to fully sign up. To the chemical weapons treaty. So the rest of this is the concern about enforcement . Its a concern about disclosure, openness, and then following enforcement. Now, we dont know if the french resolution also includes the threat of force. Which was a possibility that was discussed earlier today. And also what we dont know tonight is if the french resolution also includes punishment for those responsible for the events which took place on august 21st. Interestingly when the president spoke, he made mention, though he talks about it the developments and possible of a u. N. Security council resolution, he made no mention of punishment saying only disarmament and destruction. All right, we have a series of panels that are going to join us, and our great panelingest right now, we have christopher, who is a columnist as middle east bureau chief, and has spent a lot of time in the middle east. And hillary who is approach so at she served in both the bush and clinton administrations and she is the author of going to tehran. One thing the president repeated over and over, again, was the importance of not letting tyrants get away using weapons of mass destruction. We have seen a long history of letting them get away with it. Going back to saddam lose sane. There were by some as many as think one prior uses of chemical weapons. Why now . I think first of all you need to understand something, and look at Saddam Hussein is one example. Its not just that they kill people, it is odorless, it is colorless, you dont know when it is happening to you until suddenly you cant beet, you are con as a resulting, it has a horrible effect. When sudan hussein used those he killed maybe 5,000 people. Three years later he didnt have to use them to terrorize hundreds of thousands of people. And drive them to the mountain sides. If asaad is able to continue to use chemical weapons, freely, in syria, he will win this war. He will cleanse whole parts of the country of his enemies, and he will terrorize anyone who stands against him. And that is what the administration cannot allow as far as the president s judgement is concerned. What the president leave out and obscures is that the quite has a clean record. That we didnt help Saddam Hussein acquire the weapons was to kill tens of thousands of iranians during that war. We leafs out the fact that we used ancient orange, that we used gas what is the point . But the issues is here, the reason why the president talk about that and puts us forward as this great ben nine power, always a force for good, is because this isnt about chemical weapons. 100,000 people have died it is about 1,000 people that were killed by a particular weapon, or this weapon, this is about the balance of power. This is about the reality that six months ago, it dawned on the administration that when president obama had said asaad has to go, two years ago that wasnt happening. That the Syrian Government was winning and with that, he is bob la, iran, russia, and china would win. This is not about to change the wail balance of power, it is to spring us to stalemate. Continue to agree with the fact that asaad has been winning, if you look at the last 30 days prior to him using chemical weapons 63 strategic victories for the free syrian army, all across the country. What has happened is asaad entered the city, using went to enter that city and there were only 750 respectfully disagree. But in terms of what the president knows what the Intelligence Community here is saying, what general dempsey has said, what the u. S. Military is said is the opposite. You and i are not on the ground, but in terms of what the u. S i just came back from the ground, so i have also been to to middle east. Im from syria. I came from syria. So did i. Just two weeks ago. Two months, but the issue is what is the information that the u. S. President is acting on. What is general dempsey saying. General dempsey is saying that the situation was so perilous we could not tell one opposition from the other, thats one reason why the arm supply from the United States has been slow. This is a strategic problem for the United States, and president obama fails there was some information today about further contact conflict on the ground. Yes, there was. For the First Time Since august 21 forking p stirrian air force jets were in the air there are reports of very heavy fights in the south. Most notably between the army and the one of the al quaida affiliates. Now, theres sort of a side show between elements of the rebel fors, but that is also contributing to the confusion and some of the doubts about who people are on the drowned. Thats precisely my point, is what the president is. One at a time. Whee. One at a time. I thought i was confused with the president. Listen to you. Now im totally confused. More than 99,000 souls have lost their lives. 99,000 99,000 people have died. The focus on the chemical weapon is aside show and maybe even a pretext. We need to get to real conflict resolution, to stop this conflict. But at the same time isnt it important to get in there and send a message, pause we have iran next door developing weapons, so at some point dont we have to call them to account. The message is if you defy the president you survive. President obama said asaad has to go, you know what will happen, is asaad will stand. He will be stronger, just like his father did when he killed over 35,000 people over 30 years. Just like his father. He will survive, he will get stronger, iran will be stronger. And russia is back in the drivers eat. Where does that leave us . Okay. We should do what. We should engage in serious diplomacy and not pretend that we have to deal with asaad the constituencies he represents and iran and russia. Just a month ago stand by. On the stage, we want to go now to beirut. Rah journalist who has been acting very act ily and has a voice from on the ground in the region. What are you seeing here . What developments can you report to us tonight . Well, you know i listen to the president s speech as well yes, el hello, can you hear me. Yes. Hello. Yes, we can hear you, please go ahead. Yes, well i listened to the president s speech this evening as well, and i was just checking on social media and other outlets to get some sort of a reaction. And the consensus among many syrian whose have been following is that basically although president obama referred repeatedly to those horrific videos of children gasping for breath, he expressed quite a selective moral outrage, and he didnt seem to be terribly interested in the videos of other children being killed by jets and helicopter gun ships. It seems like the issue wasnt dead children, per se, but how they were killed. And that just seems to be a Quick Reaction from people who listen to the speech here. Can you speak to that . You are nodding your head, and i think this goes to what is the value, where do we put the value in terms of what death is the death that we Pay Attention to. Dillon thomas said after the first death, there is no other. Every death is important. When we are talking about 100,000 dead in a war like this, it is a horrific thing. If you have been in a war, you know what bodies look like when they are blown apart. To say that chemical weapons are more horrible, up so pack to, then other kinds of death is crazy. But the president did draw that line. But, because chemical weapons are such an effective war of terror and can be used in the way that a dad used them, they are a game changer. Thats the real problem. If the idea is to go to diplomacy, through a stalemate which i have to say i think is a pretty cynical way to do thing, but it is the way diplomacy works then you dont want asaad to use chemical weapons. If he is really going to take them off the table now, through the russian initiative, then we will go back to a situation where we can debate about what is going on on the grounden p who is winning who is not. Are there stalemates how is that going. If he is allowed to use those chemical weapons he will win. Lets talk about diplomacy for a second. Ronnie, i need to go back in beirut, can you talk also about the impact regionally there in lebanon, you are seeing much of the refugee population moving across from syria. In the terror and in the growth of this rapid growth of refugee population. Yes, absolutely. The statistics are quite overwhelming. Every fourth person is now a syrian. Thats an indication of how many have fled to try to find ref jew in a country that is quite polarized over the issue. This country has long been divided. And certainly the influx of refugees has not eased any of those tensions if anything, it has added to it. Thats just one state. You know, there are millions of syrians that are displaced inside syria itself, in addition to the million whose are outside of its borders and who are trying to seek refuge and who have sought refuge in jordan, in lebanon, the neighbors countries are buckling under the pressure of this immense weight of the syrian exodus from the war zone. A journalist in beirut has been closely following the situation, and the refugee population. Antonio. We will address that more as the show goes on. This terrible catastrophe that is happening in syria and in the countries that border it. Lets have some reaction questions from the audience. Hi, my name is peter i am from d. C. My question is this, it seems like what obama did was craig his feet tonight, i guess he is doing that is because there seems to be a lot of extremist rebel groups and hezbollah, and theres not a good outcome, why cant our diplomates influence this any better than they have. Whats wrong with the state that the only way we can act is by tom hawks. I worked for the state department for over ten years and one of the problems that you is is you dont control the message. You have a president who can use the bull by pulpit, and this president regarding asaad like he did with libya, came out without clearance, without a national Security Council meeting to say asaad has to go. Cued daffy has to do, which withouts the United States on the trajectory towards war. The problem here is that it has been two years, and each time we have intervened in these conflicts we have become less andless effective. We are less able to achief to do what we say we are going to do. This is a strategic crisis for the United States. And it has put russia in the drivers seat internationally. This is something that obama completely glosses over. I worked also with the Russian Foreign minister when he was the ambassador to the u. N. , he is one of the smartest not just diplomats but smartest people, he doesnt speak recklessly. Two fact that the russians have put out that from their prior investigation that they have reason to believe that the rebels are the ones that fires the gas, they are not putting it out there because they are playing around. They are boxing us in, and we are not even seeing the door slam. The nice thing is today we have the head of forensic investigation defect, somebody who oversaw the investigation. In the area that the russians are saying, and he came with 33 eyewitness reports the Police Reports he came with them, to say that an actual airplane fired a missle prior to the chemical attack. And that you underestimate lav error we underestimate and putin. Let etalk about realities. What we have asked for we said listen, let the evidence show, why dont we bring u. N. Inspectors let them go in, and investigate. Let them move freely. When this attack happened the u. N. Inspectors living in a hotel about 30 minutes away. And we expect if he is serious about finding the truth, why dont you just let the inspector goss there within the first two hours. No. Thats not true. Thats just not true. Remember the u. N the only one that disagreed with you on that one. Remember that the nos true. The protocol that is signed between the u. N there are official you only answer one question, you only answer whether they are used or not, you are not allowed to answer the more important question trying to undermine the u. N. , because the u. N. Investigators 2 million important things. Sheila. One. Go. They can look at delivery devices. We have asked them. All right. Hillary, hillary. Let sheila go here. Let one at a time. I want to say this, weaken prohibitions brought the u. N. Inspectors here are the devices time them with us, they are no we cant do this. I am going to get up and separate the two of you. It is fun, huh. I worked for the Bush Administration. Come out here to the audience. A question about military intervention, a College Student . Yes, im a sophomore at George Washington university. I have a question for the pang nell about u. S. Intervention. Flowing that the strike has such low approval, i believe it is around 25 , is it plausible that obama did not actually plan on striking syria but actually instead felt that he wanted to intimidate asaad into relinquishing the chemical weapons. And would allow the u. S. To maintain the threat of credibility that he talks about in his speech. And stick to his red line, and maintain his credibility. All right. The only reason we see this Political Movement now, even the ruckses interested is because of this credible threat of force. The russians they were shipping two to four shipments of weapons to asaad regime per week. And they still will. They stopped. But because the message that russian sha they stopped delivering them. What is the message that russia sent to syria about this . I think russia is telling syria, it is time to back off on the chemical weapons dont do this, you are going to create a huge problem. You can probably hang out without the weapons but if you push this, there will be military action. I think to answer the ladys question, i wish that the administration were so smart and calculated that it had played its cards right. But i dont think anything we have learned over the past few weeks suggests that is the case. The president was as hillary said boxed into his own rhetoric, where he had to do something once there had been 1400 killed in front of the eyes of the world, and he started looking around for something to do, eh looked for the minimal military response. Its still we still dont see what the strategy is that the military response is supposed to deliver. And he is started pushing that and hoping for the best. But the truth is, that the president hasnt had a very coherent policy on syria ever. And the consequences are grave, if you can deal that with it leaves asaad in more control. He will then move there to mop up two opposition. This is not a beginning of a new life for syrians. We have to take a break, we will come back and talk a little bit more, chris i want you to address hillarys broader point about the effectiveness of strikes in the middle east, with he be right back. There is america tonight, with ask audience that she has found. Sarah. Thats right. Good evening. I am here and outside detroit, with a group of people that are syrian american, and they have a lot to say. Talk to me a little bit about you heard the president tonight, how are you feeling . So you like what he has to say, or should the u. S. Stay out. Overall i was pleased that he said he wants to postpone any kind of military intervention. Personally i think that the United States should stay completely out of syria for now. That