A polar bear cub is born with no sense of sight. We are a decisional funding provided by these funders. And by bloomberg a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. From our studios in new york city this is dharl charlie rose. The arab spring reached syria nearly two years ago when residents of a small Southern City protested the governments tover ture of students. Today those protests erupted into one of the post deadly civil yars in syrian history. Over 400,000 refugees have fled the wartorn country, opposition remains fragmented and in some cases disorganized but as the violence escalates, the International Community may have to decide when and how to intervene am joining me cbs news correspondent clarissa ward. She has spent much of the past year reporting from inside sirria. She is one of the only journalists to tell this story from the front lines. I am pleased to have her here become on this program and to congratulate her because she received the dupont reward, one of the most prestigious awards in journalism for her reporting from syria, so congratulations. Thank you very much. Rose i should also say that when she was formerly at abc and other places. An when i got to know her she was covering china for abc news and we very pleased to have her at cbs. So thank you. Thank you. Rose so tell me where syria is as we speak. As we speak syria is in a bloody quagmire. It is a stalemate currently at the moment. I think there was a real sense towards the end of last year that the momentum was on the side of the rebels, that they were moving closer to the capitol, that they had launched this audacious attack into aleppo. But when president Bashar Alassad stood up and made that speech in the operahouse in damascus earlier this month, i think we really saw that actually hes very emboldened. That he feels that time is on his side. That he does still enjoy the support of the army, which is very significant in terms of effecting the rebels ability to push further forward. And that he has managed to persuade the minority groupsing the alowiti we which he is a member and the christians that this is essentially a fight for their survival income a sensement and that therefore they should maintain their loyalty to Bashar Alassad. So at the moment you are really stuck in this stalemate, with the rebels sort of moving forward one day and then back the next day, and Bashar Alassad not really needing to make any progress to maintain what he already has, and of course with the support of the russians and the iranians. So if you look at the rebels, are they organized . No, no, they are not organized. And this is a discussion ive been having with rebels for the year that i have been going in and out and staying with different rebel groups, mostly in Northern Syria and aleppo. And i remember having a conversation with one young manment and i said why cant you just pick one leader, and you can all get behind them. You dont have to love him more than anyone. But if you can all agree on one person then you can really start to push this thing forward. And he looked at me and he said clarissa, right now every reb nell syria thinks that he is the next leader of syria. So you have a situation where you have a lot of chiefs or wouldbe chiefs and very few indians. And whats that that has done is really to hamper the rebel progress in terms of communicating together. And its also opened up up the door for more extremist forces to come in because they are organized, they are disciplined, they do have a more coheesive structure. And that has ultimately been much to the debt iment of the rebels. And where are they they i think the rebels arent getting much support to be clear and particularly those sort of Free Syrian Army commanders who espouse more secular value os, who are not part of supporters of more observation treatmentist groups. They say that they feel very letdown by the west. That they have not been given money, weapons, many of them feel, in fact, that the u. S. Has gone out of their way to ensure that they dont get any of these heavier weapons. Rose because they are worried it will fall in the wrong hands. Theyre worried it will fall in the wrong hands. Theyre aware of the fact that there are extremist forces operating on the ground in syria now. When i went in february of last year, that was wasnt really the case. This wasnt a revolution about islam. People were talking about democracy. And people were talking about freedom. You dont rather so much of that talk any more among certain groups within the rebels. Because there is a very strong strand of militant islamists who have taken advantage of the vacuum. They have come in with their discipline, with their money, and their weapons which are coming mostly from gulf countries and saudi arabia. And they have a lot more they are almost all sunni muslims. And of course the rebels will try to tell you this is not a sectarian conflictment we do not have any problem with the alloweitz and we will be sure that after the fall of a assad thereant would be reprisal killings but they have to the done enough ultimately to win the hearts and minds of many of the ode people who are at this stage kind of looking on both sides and being like what do i do. Nor have they done enough to alleviate the deep seeded fears that, of course, many have, that if the regime does fall,. Rose its all for them. Its all over for them. Rose they have to leave the country or go. There was at one point floated an argument that they could somehow, that assad pite go to some enclave with others and protect himself. So the homeland or heartland so to speak is along the coast. There is latakia and tartuk sess,. Near the russian base. Exactly, along the mediterranean and in the mountains as well overlooking that. There was a strong argument put forward by some people that it would make sense for Bashar Alassad and the people to essentially retreat to latakia and try to set up some kind of a small state there. The reality is logistically its hard to imagine how that would actually really take place. And whether or not in the aftermath of some kind of a victory where the rebels take damascus, they take a lemo, they woon then be tempted to go one step further and say no, you cant just escape to latakia. You must come and stand trial or you know, accept punishment for whatever your role may have been in trying to quash the rebellion beforehand. And at this stage i feel that president assad still has a pretty decent grip on damascus and the center of damascusment that can change in a heartbeat. How far away are the rebels. Theyre not far. They are nipping at the heels without a doubt. Of damascus. Absolutely. Theyre all around, and all the suburbs. They are launching occasionally attacks right in the heart, right in the power base. But as we have seen in aleppo, just because you are all around or even if you go in and launch a major fencive t is one thing to attack. It is another thing to hold. And this is something that the rebels are not very good at. They are not short on bravery. They have launched incredibly bold and audacious attacks, most notably in damascus in the summer when the huge bomb took out half of the ministers. And you know including assads brorbl. Exactly. But you look at aleppo, for example, all the money, resources, manpower, the bloodshed that has gone into this operation which makes very little sense from a Strategic Point of view. And every day they take three more streets. And then the next day they lose the three strits. And the effect of the rebel attack on aleppo has been devastating, for every one in the country. For rebels and for regime supporters. And for the hundreds of thousands of people who arent necessarily interested inic thatting sides at this stage. But who know longer have access to bread, to Running Water to electricity. And at this stage, its hard to see where aleppo is going. I mean the rebels have managed to gain a lot of ground but they dont. They havent been able to take the whole city and theyre not always able to hold on to the bits that they do have. And how many people from the syrian army are going over to the rebels which was a factor and the defections they had among generals. Well, its interesting. I think about a year ago you started to see what started as a trickle really become a steady stream of mostly sunni soldiers, mostly sort of grunts and the boys on the front lines who were tired of, or were appalled by what they were going asked to do or forced to do. And who therefore defected to the rebels. And you were occasionally seeing a general and pu the problem is that because the rebels are are so fragmented, because they are disorganizedment for many of these military, particularly the more senior officers, they risk their lives, endanger the livelihoods of their families. They make the dangerous escape. They go to join the rebels and they are confronted with chaos, with, you know, a really, a lack of a strategic vision, with a lack of weapons, a lack of money, a lack of resources. So i think that its fair to say that that stream has kind of steadied up to a trickle again. I also think if you are defected at this stage, are you not getting alot of points for that any more. Were nearly two years in. Anyone defect noug has a lot of blood. I have had the foreign minister of russia here. And they seem to have cooled with are. To assad and have backed off from some of the early statements of support for him without saying that they were not supporting him. But clearly believing that there ought to be some kind of negotiated settlement to this thing. I think theyre pushing very hard for a negotiated settlement. They realized that you know, maybe theyre backing the wrong horse. So to speak. I think the cooling off that you refer to is largely rhetorical rather than, i mean theres no question that they are still propping that government up. And how. They print money for them. The syrians cant any longer principle their own currency in their own country, so the russians are printing the syrian spounds for them and putting them on planes and delivering it. They are supporting them militarily. And they are supporting them diplomatically, even. They have kind of become a proxy, almost or vicea versa. And so i do think you know were starting to see the russians evacuating some of their citizens, those who wish to leave syria. A lot of people dont realize that because syria was sort of soviet Union Satellite state, there are a lot of russians, some 60,000 richans living in syria, many russian women married syrian men during the time of the soviet union the. Theyre still living inside sir yap. So the russian government is now, you know, helping those people who would like to be evacuated. But i dont think youre going to see the russians come out and say Bashar Alassad has to go. I mean they will stop short of saying that. But if some kind of a deal was reached by both sides that meant that he did go, i dont think they would complain about it at this stage. And what kind of negotiations are going on now, pro himi has been over there a couple couple of times. The last time they left the syrians were critical. I think says something when you have the head of the u. N. Saying it doesnt appear there is a diplomatic solution to this crisis. Behind closed doors i have 4erd rumblings that bro himi is looking, perhaps, to step away from that role. Just as kofi annan ultimately whats the problem for them . The problem is that when you have shall did i mean there are a lot of problems. But because they cant get anybody to talk to them. They cant get february to sit down with each other because i think you have two major problems. First of all without do you sit down with from the opposition . Its still no clear. Okay you have this new coalition that has been sped up which is run or lead by hadib. You can sit down and have a very sensible and reasonable conversation with him. But if you talk tie rebel fighter on the ground in aleppo hes like what he is not here, im here, im the fighter. And these are the people, really, that you need to talk to. These are the leaders that you need to ice lanted who need to be incorporated into any kind of peace talk or discussion about how to progress things further. And i done think that kofi annan or brahimi had any like in isolating who those leaders werement because honestly it is to the really clear who they are, in fact. And in trying to bring them to the table. And similarly, are you dealing with the regime, you no, brahimi can go and talk to Bashar Alassad every day and have a perfectly nice conversation. But at the end of the day bashar assad will do what he wants to do. And the regime will act in a way that it feels is necessary to survive. And with both sides so deeply rooted in that thinking, diplomacy doesnt really seem to have you know any appeal yet. How will this movie end . I mean there are a number of scenarios. And you know, a lot of them are really, really bad. But i would say a couple of things. I think one of the most a recall laing things that weve seen happen over the course of the last six months, really, is the rise of these extremist groups inside syria, particularly one group, wit u. S. Administration declared a terrorist organization. Unfortunately there is an argument to be made for the fact that some people say this terrorist designation has made them more popular, even, because its like theyre trying to help us. And you call them terrorist, why would you do that when they are the only ones trying to help us. And you know a lot of the rebels will say to you, listen, were not extremists. This isnt what we want for our future. But we were drowning. We were dying. We need to win. We held out our hand to you. We said please help. And you didnt help. And so leer we find ourselves, these guys did help. They have money. They have weapons, they have discipline. So but they have fundamentally shifted and changed the dynamic on the ground. Now the question is in determines a possible end game, are you going to see more secular or liberal for lack of a better word forces or more moderate Islamist Forces rising up within the opposition, within the rebels and saying you know what, enough is enough, halas, we want to separate ourselves from these more extremist groups. And appeal to a broader base, particularly in terms of ode civilians. Is if they are able to do that with some measure of success it might change what you are looking at as a possible end game. Are there any lessons from libya that are apply to syria. There are so many. I remember when ambassador stevens was killed and i was about to go into syria for 60 minutes and my colleagues and i just looked at each other. We said this is the nail in the coffin for syria. Because libya was supposed to be the poster child of intervention, right. We went in. Nofly zone, took down qaddafi, set free the people, were heroes. Everyone is happy. Well, fast forward and it turns out that everyone is not necessarily happy. And that actually this Transitional Government has very little power outside of the capital. And that there are, you know, islamist militias who are basically controlling huge swathes of the rest of the country and not all of them are sympathetic to western or democratic values. And indeed some of them are actively hostile to the u. S. So it kind of changed. Everything that americans had kind of believed about like if you give people democracy theyll be happy and theyll like us because we all like democraciment suddenly kind of changed in a moment. And it was like okay, actually thats not necessarily the way things work. And intervention doesnt necessarily mean a happy ending. And i think the Syrian People felt that very strongly too. And from a Security Point of view, if are you the u. S. Administration, and are you looking at how qaddafi, odduous though he may have been, he did provide some sort of, he was a linchpin in the region for combatting extremism, for keeping all those groups under control, and now that hes gone its interesting. You are starting to see already like a trickle. The mercenaries who were working for him and were heavily arm ready now popping up in libya, you know, other parts of libya, mali, algeria, and looking at any ger and chad and more tanya. It potentially becomes really, really frightening. And the same argument could be paid about Bashar Alassad. That he was able to contain islamists and that therefore you lose him, what comes in. And especially his father. Exactly. There is also the question of the chemical weapons. There was a flurry when they thought perhaps that Bashar Alassad was going to move them there was some activity and i think that everybody, including the russians sent a strong message, dont play around with the chemical weapons, what is the thinking inside about how safety these chemical weapons are, b, somebody might fall into the wrong hands even though they are rebels, and b whether assad would use them in the end . I think there are two schools of thought there is the school of thought that like this is a man who is, who is evil. Who has actively, actively bombarded and sought to kill Civilians En Masse as a tactic to frighten them away from supporting the rebels. So you know, of course what would stop him from using chemical weapons. Hes clearly he crossed every red line. Its line but then there is another school of thought that says well, you know what, hes also pretty cynical and calculating and savvy in many ways. And why would he use chemical weapons when he snows that the Immediate Reaction of the International Community, perhaps grudgingly would be okay, now we really do have to get involved. Now we really do have to do something. That said he certainly is not beyond doing, you know, using mem call weapons then blaming it on the rebels and but when you talk to people inside syria, the chemical weapons issue is not necessarily such a preoccupation for them in the way that it has become in the west. For us we think chemical weapons there is nothing more horrifying, we think of mustard gas and sarrin in the first and second world war. These people are already living in hell this rebeing bombed and shelled and snipered and shot at every single day. So while they are aware that the threat of chemical weapons is out there, they are already suffering so enormously that i dont think they sort of view it with quite the same this is the red line two other countries i want to talk about. How significant is t