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Schaffer in d.c. we are joined by ukrainian born attorney and by former u.s. ambassador to the united states for special political affairs. if i can start with you, is it too late for diplomacy here? >> no, it is not. obviously putin is trying to change the facts on the ground. what the president has the opportunity to do is to push for a political solution. and obviously mr. putin is only to going to agree to that if he sees an autonomous crimea. for us what we have to stand up against is this aggression. at the end of the day there is the possibility of a political solution. >> you are in th...

>> what kind of world would we live in if the united states of america sees a dictator brazenly violate international law with poison gas. and we choose to look the other way? >> it will be the world we have lived in -- since president reagan looked the other way when saddam hussein used chemical weapons. the red line on chemical weapons, suggests there are civilized and uncivilized ways of death in war. war is not civilized. war is the break down of civilization. war making nations need to believe otherwise. they need to believe there are reasonable rules of war. that belief system was streng...

Live in if the united states of america sees a dictator brazenly violate international law with poison gas. and we choose to look the other way? >> it will be the world we have lived in -- since president reagan looked the other way when saddam hussein used chemical weapons. the red line on chemical weapons, suggests there are civilized and uncivilized ways of death in war. war is not civilized. war is the break down of civilization. war making nations need to believe otherwise. they need to believe there are reasonable rules of war. that belief system was strengthened after the vietnam war wh...

Country's troops where minimally in harm's way because they're in planes or safety of a ship firing missiles or actively in harm's way because they're on ground guiding the missiles, the country doesn't want anymore of that. >> exactly. you look at the history of the war powers act, it was enacted after vietnam. the war was very world weary, united states was war-weary and didn't want to find themselves into a quagmire as vietnam was called and this was enacted in some ways to prevent that from happening again, to give the president a bit of check and balance if he decides to get into an incur...

From your sources there was an internal fight for the president to come to this decision after talking with his chief of staff? >> the political people were concerned about it because they do have work to do on capitol hill. it's not an easy vote. there were worries about the risks. the president has always taken political risks going back to when he first ran for president. so there was some concern on the political side about this but there wasn't active opposition. no, you should not go to congress. because when you think about it, it's consistent with where barack obama has been from the g...