Retired General: Sanctions hurting Iran

(CBS News) The U.S. sanctions expected to go into effect at the end of February, are already making Iran "squirm," retired Gen. James Jones, former national security adviser to President Obama, said Thursday on "CBS This Morning."

"They're doing things that are predictable -- they're threatening people again, they're cutting off oil to Europe...They're threatening Hormuz on the access of energy through the straits. That's symptomatic of a regime that is trying to rally its people in support of its policies.

"But there's also, in my view, a hint of desperation about things," Jones said. "I think the sanctions are hurting. We know that skyrocketing inflation, their access to capital is diminished. People are unhappy. We also know that the Iranian people were the first ones -- there was a Persian spring, really before an Arab Spring, so there's a deep resentment there in the fabric of Iranian society towards our government."

Jones said he personally believed there's a high probability that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's "will have to leave office one way or the other."

"Most of the people that I talk to and this would include people that I respect and know in the Arab world, believe that Assad cannot survive much longer," he said. "And so in that case, we have to be very agile and quick about preparing for what's next and you can do that in different ways."

For more with Jones, watch the video in the player above.