The last person to serve as U.S. ambassador to Syria predicts that Syrian President Bashar Assad will try to use chemical weapons again despite the U.S. military strike against last week.

“I think the strikes that we did last week on that airbase were very good,” Robert Ford said on “CBS This Morning.” “It’s time to try to deter Assad from using chemical weapons, so I think that’s a good step. But it’s only a step. Assad will almost certainly try to use chemical weapons again, and so I think it will be hard to convince the Russians to lean on Assad to stop using chemical weapons.”

American forces fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week, the first time the U.S. military has directly intervened in the Syrian civil war by attacking Assad's forces. The bombing was in response to a chemical attack that killed more than 80 civilians that U.S. officials say was carried about the Assad loyalists.

Bombing a single airfield won’t do much to hurt Assad’s military capabilities, however, and the government has already launched jets from the site since the attack....