from our studio in new york city, this is "charlie rose." we are working closely with the

radiance to develop a holistic strategy to isolate al qaeda groups. we have seen some successes were tribal forces and police appear to have isolated groups and pockets of the city. >> we begin with the rock. they appear to be at risk of descending into sectarian war. troops were withdrawn in falluja. many see the renewed violence in overspill from the civil war which rages in syria. some of the most fearsome insurgents are associated with the islamic state in iraq in syria. secretary kerry has offered assistance to the predominately shiite government. no american troops will be deployed. iran pledged to help iraq but ruled out joint operations with the united states. from washington, d.c., robin wright. she is a joint fellow at the

u.s. institute of peace and the woodrow wilson center. she has reported -- recently returned from a trip to iran. max boot, a fellow at the council on foreign relations. he also wrote "invisible armies: an epic history of guerrilla warfare from ancient times to the present." from the newlkins yorker. i am pleased to have all of them here this evening. the question we begin with, max, what is happening? -nothing good. >> nothing good. iraq achieved a measure of stability after the surge in 2008. eyelids fell more than 90%. the primeely, minister of iraq has not shown himself to be someone who can consolidate the gains won on the battlefield. he has squandered them with a policy alienating the sunni community.

qaeda in iraq.al it was on its death bed in 2008 and it has had resurgence and come back. >> who allow the resurgence? >> part of it is the condition in syria. known as the islamic state of a rock and syria has become very powerful in northern syria. it has also allowed the resurgence of a ui, very bad policies that are ill uniting the sunni population and driving them away from the government qi. into the arms of a in 2011,u.s. troops which were a stabilizing factor, are now gone. iraq is a lot less viable -- stable. bettermight remember than i do, there was someone from the iraqi government who said to the afghan government, don't make the mistakes we did. you do not want to prevent the americans from staying.

do you remember that? >> it was the foreign minister. >> in terms of what is happening in iraq -- >> i agree with max. is theard to know which greater catalyst, whether it is sectarian policies or the war in syria. what is truly terrifying to me is it is not really the war in iraq, is the war in syria. which have sectarian war is going from iraq into syria and all the way to lebanon. if you remember, the islamic state of iraq and syria took credit for a car bombing, a recent car bombing, of hezbollah in beirut. you have the same group operating in three countries. they feed off each other. it is the same people. into -- in atarted rock, week to see real, and now they are moving back. >> these are people within islam

fighting each other. >> absolutely, we have a sectarian war now. it is stretching across the middle east. >> i want to get to iran, but first iraq. robin, you know the makeup of the groups there that have been in syria or islamist extremist or whatever term you want to use. ways a is in some perfect storm. you see all kinds of different militias that have evolved out of the chaos in syria and the disintegration of iraq. hits shiites against sunnis, and it pits sunnis against each other. you have a civil war within a civil war. in a rock, you see a civil war within a broader political crisis. the issue with all of these countries is not just military, the issue boils down to politics.

hopessues that the great of u.s. intervention in iraq, or the arab spring that push for democratic changes, that the political environment did not create enough space for people to participate. as a result, you are seeing people who have to take sides because there is not an alternative. ort is very forbidding foreboding about the future. the fact is that there is no prospect that any kind of u.s. military aid to a rock, for example -- there are no missiles or helicopters, gunships are going to not make any real difference. in the joint chiefs of staff were initially concerned about going in to the search. they thought they could have were they wanted militarily. they were afraid of these big clinical questions that would not be addressed. the interesting thing is that 7- 8 years after the search, you are still seeing the failure of

the maladie government in baghdad to address the core issues. revenues?are oil how you share political power? how do you divide it up so everyone feels as if they are represented? that is the real failure. all of this turmoil will continue. >> i would like to back up what robin just said and to expand it a little bit. she's actually right. to me there is a real thaler -- failure of american policy going on here. president obama did not try very hard to keep u.s. troops in iraq after 2011. he portrayed iraq as being a wonderful and stable state. now iraq is getting into trouble and we are sending them hellfire missiles and all sorts of high- tech emissions -- munitions. this is not helpful, it is deductive. you will not solve this problem with missiles.

a are facing counterinsurgency situation in a rock and you need a political plan. you can have a military line of operations, but it has to be embedded in a larger political strategy. a do not have a political strategy. we need something like what general petraeus was able to do in 2007. wisdom tot have the do that. we would like the leverage. that thesume president had negotiated with the iraqi government to leave some troops there, not to be engaged in warfare that might be going on at that point in time, but simply for some kind of peacekeeping mission. >> a buffer, stabilizer type role. >> would it have made a difference? >> it is hard to know, but i think it would have made a difference. a lot of people were saying that iraq is too fragile to leave them on their own. you need to have somebody to act as an arbiter between the various factions. that was a role being performed by the american forces.

we took a very hands-off attitude. the results of that is leaving the iraqis on their own, they have not been able to handle it. they do not have the leadership. >> we have a real problem in that we could not stay there indefinitely without looking like we were trying to con allies -- colonize a rock or other parts of the region. the treasury could not absorb it. that is a core problem with the problem if there was a with washington, it is that we did not push harder for the kind of reconciliation between the sunnis and shiites. we have played almost no role since our troops withdrew in trying to promote that. we have allowed, even know are we are providing enormous amounts of equipment, we have malkished prime minister to push people to make sure that

they would continue to fight al qaeda. the al qaeda situation is worse in iraq than at the height of when we were there. >> at the height of sectarian conflict? >> yes. had left troops is,nd, whatever the number whatever they were doing, i think our mere presence there would have allowed us to condition the government possibly her. best behavior. the kind of sectarianism that he embarked on when we left, i hadk we probably -- if we still been there, we would have been able to contain it. , he livesce president a turkey and he is under death sentence. he had to flee the country. leader,inent sunni

maliki has basically chased away. that is the core of what is happening. that is why it is breaking down. had we been engaged, -- it is also a matter of will. i think the white house came in and president obama campaigned on getting us out of iraq. we wanted to leave. and we did. we left, we are gone. we are doing some interesting stuff, but the cia is there and targeting information for the hellfire's. >> aldie talk from the white house is that we want to move back from the middle east and send a signal in the region that we are allowing harmful actors to act up without fear of intervention. it is not just military intervention, we are not even intervening politically. not steering iraqi politics in a more positive direction. >> that brings us to a rod. robin, what did you see? how is iran seeing the world

that is happening in the middle east? these are forces at play in the middle east. how does intend to take advantage of it all in its rivalry with saudi arabia? >> a lot of questions there. one of the most interesting things is the way that 10 years ago, we all talked about the shiite crescent radiating from tehran. this is a growing political threat. the interesting thing in terms of what is happening and the disintegration in iraq and weia, turmoil in lebanon, have seen a rod's power and influence diminish. it feels increasingly threatened the fact that u.s. forces have withdrawn. al qaeda is back in iraq. be taliban is likely to increasingly strong once u.s. troops withdraw from afghanistan.

encircled by the sunnis, particularly by the militancy that is disproportionately powerful in the region. that has contributed in many ways to be outraged. the united states ironically looks a little bit more interesting to that as a potential ally, or not as the rival it has been since the 1979 revolution. you begin to see a strategic recalculation in tehran. it is also reflected in their possession on syria. -- position on syria. to ron wants to be included in an international peace effort. it may in the end be willing to ,alk away from president assad to lop off the political head in damascus, but allow the body, the party, to remain as a major player. i think the arabian understands -- syria cannot hold

together if assad's days in power are long-term. there are a lot of really interesting things happening inside iran. >> i have to say that looking at what is happening in the region, i do not see a lot of signs of the recalibration that she is talking about. i see that the iranians are all in, they are doubling down. were most likely behind a massive car bombing recently in lebanon. they are giving more aid than ever to assad. i see a more active than ever role by the iranians to try to foam and insurgencies and expand their sphere of influence all the way up to the mediterranean. they are still doing what they have been doing since 1979. regional hegemony. >> what does that mean for negotiations? exit means that it is very

unlikely that they will give up their entire nuclear program -- they may be doing -- willing to do the kind of trade-off are they slow down their program in return for recognition to enrich uranium. exactly what they are seeing is de facto recognition of their regional hegemony, how they are viewing america. my impression, and i think it is shared by people in washington is that inside the iranian government, there is a two track thing. rouhani, the new president, has been asked by the supreme leader to make a deal on the nuclear program. the best when he can get, and he has some latitude to do that. or in policy, when it comes to syria and the rest of the middle east, has been left to the hardliners. those two things are not connected. ask my question is whether there is a connection between the two?

-i think not. >> when you look at this idea that john kerry put forward that iran could come to a conference and have an observer role, is that something that will fly? >> that is basically inviting the arsonist to advise on how to put out the fire. chooseatter how he might to restrict their participation? as i think there is a larger strategy that the administration is pursuing. to draw a ron in to be a part of this concert of the middle east, to be a helpful factor in resolving conflicts, instead of being a troublemaker that they have been since 1979. that is what you are saying. it is a gamble, and it is a gamble that is likely to fail. iran is deeply committed to expanding their influence. they are not serious about working with us to extend the fire and places like syria. they are fanning the flames. >> robin? >> i would disagree without a

little bit. there's no question that iran wants to be a big player in terms of military and economy. that they do want a nuclear deal. just because of the impact of sanctions, but they want to be players. there is an appetite. yes, you will see a ron exerting every bit of muscle it can in the region. that is the only way they can make it clear that it has to be included. there are security issues that challenge the region. i have been trying to get into the old american embassy. i covered the hostage crisis, the revolution, and i have never been able to get in. it is now a guard's training center. this time i got in. i went to see the chief master main -- mastermind of the american embassy. it is quite an interesting

experience. i was struck by the fact that he talked very much about not only did he think it was time to renew relations with united dates, but it was time to reopen the american embassy. washington,times in we are a little bit behind the debate. the interesting thing is whether the nuclear efforts, nuclear diplomacy, they think is the first time both countries have been on the same page, whether they have actually turned it is another question -- the issue in some ways is whether or -- whether it may die or what will happen in congress of imposing new sanctions bill. or whether the diplomacy will actually find common ground. the arabians made clear when i was there that sanctions do not go in effect for six months, and that would kill the deal. both republicans and democrats are now moving quite decisively in the direction of sanctions. i think that will be an epic miscalculation. >> will kind of deal do you

think they are prepared to make? >> i do not know anybody who does. --hink like you've been talking to these people in washington. >> i think the white house believes that the iranians would accept the deal. >> yes. >> a deal that would allow us to essentially have enough visibility on the program that we could, we could spot them if they broke out and made a bomb. there are all sorts of estimates on how long it would take them to make a bomb. they are not close to that yet. at some point they have a breakout capability, and that means they can put it on together in three months, we did have enough stability with that program to know ahead of time and the most immediately.

that is what we want. with the iran -- would the iranians be prepared to accept that? i do not see much evidence that the arabians are repaired to accept that. we need a deal like the one moment could not be signed in libya. that is not even on the table. >> that is eight issue of national pride? >> i want to keep their breakout capacity so they can make a nuclear bomb. they are not going to give that up. >> i max. i think it is a question of where they left with and whether we can look back. that's a little of that. i do not think we have any expectation that they would disable their program. >> they could shut down the centrifuges. >> one of the dangers worth

pointing out is that a lot of people like the deal that we struck a thought of her chemical weapons. he is going farther than uranium dart over nuclear weapons. tois actually going eliminate his chemical weapons capacity. he has missed the deadline, but he's carrying out the deal. a lot of people view that as a de facto issue. we are recognizing assad as the .uler of syria a lot of people are looking at that as a way that is enhancing his power. that is the way that the russians view it. they engineered the deal. the arabians may be willing to sign up for a deal of that nature, one in which they make some concessions on the nuclear front, but essentially they can sell it as the americans are dealing with us. they recognize us as the most harmful player in the region. that is a real danger because of that happens, there is going to be a massive backlash, which we have already seen from the sunni states. it will lead to ugly fighting

worse than what we are seeing. like the truth is that we do not have many options when it comes to a nuclear deal. the bush administration could have made an agreement a decade ago at a time when iran had a couple hundred centrifuges. we did not take advantage of that moment and now there are 19,000 centrifuges in iran. they basically have no housing equipment, and the technology to produce a bomb. createllenge will be to circumstance where they do not take that step. we are unlikely to get them to surrender the equipment and the technology and the know-how. that has been the sad reality. reporters from your former newspaper wrote a piece a few days ago and said that the emergence of a post-america middle east in which no one has power or the will to contain the --ion's sectarian hatred does that mean there's nothing

we can do? >> what can we do right now? >> nobody is stepping in that role either? >> no. you live in syria, it is just running out of control by itself. who's going to stop that. i think -- this is a consequence of -- i think the point they were trying to make in the piece is that this is a consequence of the united aides leaving iraq with zero presence in the region. and no great will to go back in. 2014, i think in our influence of their, whether it is urea, lebanon, or a rock, is extremely thin. many americans, including then senator obama or poor fight five consequences of engagement over the past decade. we saw limbs shatter, the

horrible financial cost, and our foreign policy has shifted to disengagement. we are seeing the consequences of disengagement can be pretty steep as well. we're seeing this regional conflict burning out of control in iraq, syria, and lebanon. groups,f these sunni regardless of how they are viewed by different powers or states seem to be gaining in number and syria has provided ?hey make rounds to do what >> for lower invasion that happens whenever a conflict burns out of control. and you're seeing in syria worst of all. the country is being divided by hezbollah and al qaeda, between shiite and sunni extremists. probably the majority of the syrian population, are being pushed out.

we did not provide them with that much support to begin with. we stood on the sidelines. the extremists are taking power. the same thing is happening in iraq. this is a terrible situation, the worst of all worlds. but the longer it goes on, it is going to pull not just lebanon and a rock into it, but jordan as well. we are a seeing that. >> in many ways, the problem is that syria is a strategic center of the middle east. it is already presenting a series of challenges that will ripple not through -- not only through the middle east, but through europe and into the west. the numbers of jihad he is going europe, africa, asia, even several north america, it grants to make syria a far bigger long-term problem and challenge politically and in terms of security than afghanistan was. that is something we have been living with now for a quarter- century.

please define the difference between an islamist and a jihadist? e an islamist is a political term. includes those like the muslim brotherhood and some of the political parties. they have tried to work in some cases peacefully within the political system of iran. to how these are the ones who are militant. this is an important distinction. the islamists are far larger in areer, but the jihad hes disproportionately powerful because they take up more space. they are willing to put their lives on the line. >> do the jihadist have any allegiance to al qaeda? as we traditionally new al qaeda? where osama bin laden in some ways is not the picture that he was. the al qaeda phenomenon, it is a franchise operation now.

you find groups that will pick up the name or they will be aligned with the same ideology under a new name. they have proliferated from north africa across the levan into the gulf. this is the biggest security threat in the world today. like the consensus from the u.s. government is that this war is going to go on through another decade. >> and more people will be involved? it is horrifying. >> absolutely. and if there is strategy? are seeing it. what is it? >> it is to try to broker a deal. >> with the russians? >> maybe with the iranians. that ultimately means the removal of assad. i would like to be more optimistic. >> thank you. great to see you. thank you for joining us. we will be right back. stay with us.

>> gerard baker is here, and he is the editor-in-chief of the wall street journal. in hisleted one year tenure in the paper. he also launched a new site for the paper. he is positioning the journal for success by harnessing its own digital content which can be viewed on a range of mobile devices, including smart phones and tablets. despite the decline of u.s. newspapers, the wall street journal continues to grow and retain its top position with an average circulation of 2.4 million print and digital copies. have him at the table for the first time. how is this paper different since your buyer -- since rupert murdoch bought it? to preserve and strengthen the traditional values of the journal.

that is for highly reliable and accurate and fair, truthful intoalism, but to bring it a broader audience. we want to broaden the agenda. it used to be very focused on business and economics. we have broaden that. we have maintained our strength. >> especially foreign policy and politics. >> we have also introduced supplements. we have expanded our coverage of sports and culture and fashion. we have a great magazine now. i would not want to change too much. >> we have maintained the amount of business that we do. we break more stories about business than any other newspaper. we have been able to add to that and to build on the traditional model to reach a bigger audience. >> i'm surprised a lot of people would be surprised at that.

they feared what would happen to the wall street journal when rupert murdoch bought it. >> that is because people did not know, they had not properly looked at what rupert murdoch had done with his news organizations around the world. "decided" int the the u.k. -- "the sun" in the u.k.. rupert murdoch has had a number of properties across the world. some are tabloids, but many of them are high quality news products like the sunday times in london in the u.k.. >> are a lot of people who would lots of people to like the journal like this better than they like the journal before. this is more of a curiosity than the old journal. at the beginning, they were worried about what would fit into the news coverage that would be a point of view. they were worried that you could clearly see it in other

newspapers. >> we are careful not to do that. what you say about the president? >> we say nothing about the president. weexplained why he won, and explained why he was elected. that is in the editorial pages of the journal. >> we have always been very conservative. we feel we have a great obligation to be objective and play it straight. in great opportunity there. there are some in news organizations that are not -- that don't play it straight. we have this great opportunity to play it straight and be fair and objective. we speak to the facts. obviously we offer interpretations. offeriously the news we interpretations. >> we interpret the news. last few months -- >> there is broad room to do that when you say we offer interpretations. as we are interpreting the facts

for an intelligent audience that wants to understand. the factsinterpret within an architecture of your own mind it has a political wing of you? promote a do not political point of view or a clinical agenda. we have a team of extraordinarily talented , 50-60 journalists we have, were steeped in and really schooled in the importance of maintaining a certain journalistic standard. we pay more attention to that than they do. we have a whole team of standards editors whose job it is to go through the paper assiduously every day, every night, and make sure that the coverage is accurate and fair. and to make sure that it is right in terms of the way that it treats people. we take that very seriously. people trust the journal because it has a reputation for being fair. >> you have a very strong opinion about leading advertising.

explain what that is and wi-fi troubling. >> it seems to be happening more and more. need it advertising can mean different things to different people. it is advertising that people abouten they are talking the digital format. advertising, in print or digital, it is intended to be cordoned off into a sort of section, boxed off in a corner of the website. it is on the right-hand side of the page, or somewhere where it is clearly demarcated and clearly identified. it feels a little bit like it is there, but it is siberia. they think it feels like people ignore it. increasingly, there has been an interest in what we call native advertising. it is advertising that looks and feels more native, more natural to the environment in which it did. >> this is a national newspaper.

2.5 million views daily. >> then includes or digital subscription. >> how much of it is subscription and how much of it -- >> about 90% of subscription. >> is this the way of the future? not just the wall street journal, but national newspapers. how does this fit in with how you see this happening in america? >> this is exactly what is happening. the old, traditional american newspaper -- i've lived in the state for 20 years. the old traditional american newspaper model, which was the big city newspaper like the san francisco chronicle and the st. louis post and every big city and every medium-size city had its own newspaper. those newspapers would bring you everything. not just news about what was going on in st. louis or in chicago, they would have a washington correspondent.

it would've a paris correspondent. a blue coverve wall street. they would cover the world. now, when you can get high quality news information about world,ld, around the under digital device from everywhere, the readers in st. their newspaper to cover every single thing in the world the way it used to. people are looking for high quality news and permissions that have the resources and the abilities to cover the big stories nationally and internationally. that is what we are. you are the editor in chief of dow jones. >> that is a little complicated in terms of the internal taxonomy.

with the dow jones consists of historically, journalistically, it consists of the wall street journal, and the dow jones newswire. it is a service that we still provide to institutional subscribers like banks and financial institutions and hedge funds and companies and governments around the world, they pay higher premiums for a stream of news that is relevant to their business. they pay to get it fast. i am responsible for that dow jones newswire. i am the managing editor of the wall street journal. the reason the division has become a little array somewhat is that we merge the two news organizations over the last few years so that we are now one single news organization. we are one single news group. >> there was also a split when news corp. became 21st century on the one hand, a film and

television organization, and it became the publishing a newspaper side. >> we are primarily focused -- we do everything from 20th century fox to harpercollins to wall street journal to the times of london. now we are split. the entertainment television companies are one company, and we are the more narrowly-focused publishing company and news which includes dow jones, the wall street journal, harpercollins, and some other publications. focused -- we were spun off in july. rupert murdoch always believed he should have a firewall and that this was not free online. have you been successful in that. our more and more people who did not rush in, they were watching what happened, are now following? >> it is clear.

predecessors,our when the web first came along in 1996, the owners decided that that they would charge for access to wall street journal and journalism online. , and you always have to subscribe to get all of it. we have done is that we have built on this in the last few years. , moretually have to be and more of our journalism is behind the pay wall. it has been very successful. we take the view that this is hi wally journalism. they cost money to produce. you do not put it out there for free. >> and people advertise? reference too a analog dollars in digital dimes. >> advertisers like to know that there is a higher track to advertising if they know that

people are paying to read -- -digital operas -- offers you a way to focus like nothing else. >> advertisers know exactly how many people look at their ads. they can find that. wsg -- brings me to wsjd. you lost a great friend of this broadcast, walter mossberg. away, and you are doing something of comcast. conference which was phenomenal. you hate to lose somebody like that. >> absolutely. he is one of the outstanding journalists of his generation. was a personal technology

columnist for the journal for the last 20 years. he brought technology, he made it comprehensible to an audience that did not find it comprehensible. he and his business partner wanted to go in a somewhat different direction. all things digital, which they established, they wanted to be increasingly independent. i believe is editor of the wall street journal that we should -- technology is so hugely important for business newspaper -- technology is usually important. for a business newspaper to the outsourcing coverage to an increasingly independent operation did not seem to be the right way to go. we mutually agreed that it was time for a separation. we havehave done is dramatically expanded our

investment in technology journalism. we have hired extra journalists and more. he launched a website which deals with these issues. we have hosted a global technology conference. we intend to go into this topic in great detail. we will believe that able to offer the liveliest, the sharpest -- we always have a -- we will be able to offer the best technology journalism. >> what have you learned about digital because you have spent a , and walle on it street journal.com, and the 10 best stories of the day. , youyou look at digital

have said you have to think in a very new way. what you create for print and playing on the web, it is not that at all. tell me what it is stop >> there's a nice story that when television first came along in the 1960s, when they started making television commercials, they basically took radio commercials, which was a combination of music and voice, and they put it over some static image because they thought that was the way in which they thought about advertising. on a visual use medium. that obviously wasn't right. it took them a while before people understood that you could do so much of the visual medium and create your own visual stories. to some extent, we did the same thing. when the web came along, we took these newspapers, which we knew how to produce, and we put them out there on the web. you could go into stores and play around with them a bit.

we have to get completely out of it. we have to understand that the digital news experience, the digital context area is a completely different one. the best way to do it is to give you an example. thingsious way in which are different is that the range of things in which you can do digitally is so different. the immediacy, the different -- you can do video, you can do audio, you can do interactive graphics. one of the analogies i use is i talk about the difference between a lecture at a seminar at college. it is social. when you have a lecture, the professor will give up -- get up and he or she will deliver the lecture. you took notes and you went away. in a seminar, someone leave the seminar, i have the interesting ideas, and then you have a discussion. increasingly digital journalism

is like that. lead -- we report the news, and give people the tools to analyze the news. we encourage social conversations on the news. let me give you the most powerful sample. -- example. most people do not consume a newspaper in the way that growing up you are i consumed a newspaper. you would read the front page of whatever bits you want. now they get their news through e-mail. or they will get it on facebook. they will read it through twitter. it will not be reading a single orspaper covered a cover even the bits of the newspaper there particularly interested in. i will be consuming piecemeal elements of a newspaper. >> part of the reason for that is that we live in a world where there is not that much time. things moreake

efficient, the amount of time you spend of information. >> a few years ago, the vast majority of our readers on our us through the homepage of the website. they would have it saved her bookmark. they would go to the web. the number is now less than 25%. they can search through google or yahoo! or whatever and they get linked on facebook or twitter or linkedin or these other social networks. ony are increasingly viewing mobile which is a completely different experience. >> how you make revenue in that? five siu charge. >> we charge. there are a certain number of stories you can read for free if you come through google. if you click on a journal --twave -- an article on a

an article wall street journal story, you have to subscribe. lax give me a sense of how much people will be reading on tablets and smartphones and not on pc is. within a few years, the vast majority of the internet will be this way. there are probably some limits. there's a limit to what you can actually tolerate on a small screen. but he would not want to watch the super bowl on a small screen. >> exactly. i find myself looking at my tablet. >> when you are in the back of a car, or writing. >> when you are in a convenient location. in terms of reading material, in terms of keeping up with the news, obviously in terms of social communications, people

increasingly use mobile devices. years,the next five there will be 3 million smartphones in the world. that is because the penetration of smartphones is still relatively small. there are going to be more smartphones. >> in africa. >> that is where the growth is going to come from. >> i don't have time to cover most of these, but here are some 2013, you said that the cloud and video devices -- you see a lot of that. there's a thing you do every where people look at the politics of midterm elections, congress coming back and how they are shaped by the politics of midterm elections. democrats are talking about inequality and republicans are talking about health care.

>> that is part of the way we cover it. we have broadened our coverage of the news. we have great coverage of politics out of washington and around the world. now, ido every morning go straight to wsj.com and have my take of the big stories that will dominate the news. why i think they are important. the stories that i think are important. i will tweak them. them.t >> often do you tweet? >> not as often as my social media interns would like me to, but daily. >> rupert murdoch is really into it now. >> yes he is. gets himself in trouble, does he not? >> he expresses his views sometimes. what is your interest in inlth care, economic growth,

the u.s. and in europe and china and japan and other emerging nations? what is the reality of where we are? midterm elections, we talked about, your publican party and she'll oil and what is going to happen there. change is coming in the nfa. in manufacturing. is there some resurgence in manufacturing here in united states? >> natural gas is so cheap that it is cheap to produce. one of the most interesting trends this year and beyond is going to be the continuing -- we an increasingly polarized world. we got used to the cold war. of bombs. a period

people talked about a multipolar world. now i think there is an increasing argument that if you look at what is going on in the middle east or what is going on in asia, and you look at what is going on in south asia or what is going on in europe or parts of africa, the u.s. is still the most important country in the world. >> but no one is as prepared or capable as playing a leadership role as the united states. >> that is true, absolutely. they do not want to play it, because they are more concerned in economic growth. >> yes. increasingly, they are trying to secure results in africa, latin america, but inevitably that has consequences to do. -- too. qaedarorism and al affiliated groups and groups affiliated with a qaeda

affiliates are popping up everywhere. yemen --t is a rock or iraq or yemen. >> it is a dangerous world. it is a great opportunity. coming. you for >> thank you very much. >> thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

♪ this is "taking stock" for tuesday, january 7, 2014. we focus on alternative ways to do this this. if it is site offers an alternative way for consumers to connect. the chief executive joins me in a moment. we will go out to las vegas. i will speak with the maker of -- and move over.