Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned in an interview Sunday that the United States should brace itself for "every action" if it ultimately uses military force in the war-torn country.
"You should expect everything. Not necessarily from the government," Assad told Charlie Rose.
CBS This Morning previewed the interview with Syria's President Bashar Assad that Charlie Rose conducted in Damascus. The entire interview will air Monday night on "The Charlie Rose Show" on PBS at 9pm EST.
In saying that Syria is "not the only player in this region," Assad seemed to allude to Iran and the militant group Hezbollah, two of his regime's allies.
"You have different parties, you have different factions, you have different ideology," Assad said. "You have everything in this region now."
After Rose asked whether chemical weapons were worse than nuclear weapons, Assad sneered and said, "I don't know, we haven't tried either."
The Syrian government has never officially confirmed that it has chemical weapons in its possession.
President Obama will give interviews Monday to ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN and Fox, according to a White House pool report, as he seeks to persuade Congress to approve a U.S. military strike against Syria.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that a strike in Syria may be postponed until after a discussion by the United Nations Security Council next week. Kerry's statement comes after key ally France saying that the nation will not act until after a report from the weapons inspectors, who were in Syria during the attack. The report is expected by mid-September, but will offer conclusions only on which chemical agents were used and how -- not on which side used them.
Kerry's predecessor, Hillary Clinton, is also expected to weigh in on the situation Monday when she gives her first public comments on the Syria resolution.
Meanwhile, 8 in 10 Americans think Bashar al-Assad gassed his own people, but they don't want to do anything about it, according to a new CNN/ORC International poll.
