>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> we turn now to afghanistan. the efforts to complete the first democratic transition continues. a deal brokered by secretary of state john kerry appears to be

in peril. both presidential candidates agreed to an audit of the vote and the formation of the unity government. differences are emerging between both camps. as withdrawal of u.s. troops draw closer, the taliban are making military gains in the south and near the capital of kabul. bruce riedel knows afghanistan's history well. he is the senior fellow of the brookings intelligence project. he has written a new book called "what we won: america's secret war in afghanistan from 1979 to 1989." i am pleased to have him back at this table. welcome. i should say anybody who wants to understand afghanistan or pakistan turns to you, including the president of the united states because you were principal advisor.

even bob woodward said the foremost intelligent expert has produced a concise history of america's first engagement in that pivotal part of the world. the book has dramatic lessons. what is the future of afghanistan? >> we are at the moment of truth, charlie. first, the presidential election. we are on the precipice. one of these two individuals, either mr. abdullah abdullah or ashraf ghani, is going to have to admit that they lost. that is not going to be easy for an afghan politician to admit. ashraf ghani would not only have to admit he lost, he will have to admit he cheated in an industrial scale and tried to steal the election. that is going to be hard. let us assume we can get over this hurdle. next year, we are going to see whether the president's gamble that we can build an afghan

army, -- president obama's gamble -- build an afghan army good enough that it could contain the taliban will pay off. it has always been a gamble. at this point, indications look like the afghan army is holding by and large but there are troubling individual incidents. there were some fights in kandahar this last week. in which the afghan army looks like it did fairly poorly. we have to watch this thing very closely over the next two years. it could unravel just like iraq. that is why we need to be very careful not to set all of our decisions about our force will be in january 2017 today. the president has backed himself into a corner on that and i think -- >> why did he do that? >> i am not a psychologist. i don't know why. >> very few people think it was a wise thing to indicate by date when you would withdrawal x number of troops.

antiwar, -- in anti-war -- one of the most important things you want to do is keep your enemy in doubt as to what your intentions are. it is always something of a mistake to single your plans in advance to the enemy and telling them by this date, we will be at this level and by this date, we will be down to zero. the good news is -- he said it so far in advance, the president has time now to change his mind. i think the lesson of iraq ought to influence that. we use an egg timer approach in iraq. it turns out afterwards that we had miscalculated with al qaeda could recover. >> we also miscalculated in terms of what the government of iraq might be like. >> that's right. i am ordering the need to maintain flexibility.

do not make decisions now that will have strains later on. >> you stay there until how long? >> i would continue to moving down of have to number to maybe 3000 in 2016. i wouldn't decide what 2017 is looking like today. just wait and see. maybe we need 2000, maybe nobody. >> you know everything i know and everything else. aboutare even stories what happened that the weapons that the u.s. provided. they don't have accountability of what happened to those weapons. >> of this president inherited a disaster. when i did the strategic review in 2009, the country was on the verge of catastrophic failure in afghanistan. nobody did bookkeeping. nobody had any idea who the enemy was. no one realized that pakistan was playing both sides of the fence and still are. you start from that base, of course, you are not going to know how many arms are in the hands of the afghan army at this stage. we didn't do our homework for

seven years. it is a little hard in the conflict to start catching up in the eighth and ninth year of the conflict. >> let me ask you this, why is it so hard to build an army in a country like afghanistan? >> that is a good question. the soviets in the 1980's actually built an afghan air force which is three or four times larger than what we built in afghanistan over the last decade. that is amazing to me. why could the soviets train afghans the fly airplanes and not us? couldn't we get russian manuals and teach them in russian or something like that? it comes down to a question of resources. for the longest time, no resources went to afghanistan. they all went to iraq. we started flowing the resources in 2009 and 2010, we impose a timeline of how long that was going to be. we can still pull this out. all along the way, the day we

went into afghanistan in 2001, we have inflicted damage on ourselves over and over and over again. >> was the biggest damage the invasion of iraq? >> absolutely. the best and the brightest of the u.s. intelligence community had been sent to afghanistan in 2001, early 2002. all those smart people from the anna gone and state department when that decision was made? >> a lot of people protested it. they did it very quietly. >> do not do this now because of afghanistan, not because of weapons of mass destruction or not, but because what happened in afghanistan will be eroded. >> if you wanted to try to take a country like afghanistan which in 2002 had known 20 years of war, it had been invaded not by one superpower, but two superpowers.

which had been poor to start with and try to get it back on track, you needed to put in resources. what did we do? we put roughly 10,000 troops for the next three years. it was like putting a band-aid on a deep wound. >> could we do nothing about corruption? >> corruption in central and south asia -- across asia is a big challenge. we are not going to fix it. >> what do you leave want to defeat al qaeda? >> i think one of the things we need to leave after 2016 is some kind of residual counterterrorism capability. drones. that doesn't mean we have to have drone strikes in pakistan every day or even every month. i would like to know that the united states of america has a unilateral counterterrorism capability to deal with the revival of al qaeda in pakistan for the future. because, the one thing we know

for sure -- the government of pakistan is not going to do anything about the revival of al qaeda. >> i will come back to that in a moment. with respect to the surge which came out of decision-making that you were involved in -- was that a good idea? >> i think so. >> things were so awful. >> if you look at stanley mcchrystal's report, which thanks to the wall street hernal is on their website, says we were on the verge of catastrophic defeat. he says in the report that the prisms we were operating in afghanistan in 2009-2010 were actually incubators for the taliban and al qaeda. they controlled the prisons. in a counterinsurgency, if the prisons you are running are an incubator for the enemy, you

are in deep trouble. >> i want to go back to afghanistan. isi. they have always allowed a safe haven for the people who were fighting the united states and the afghan governments. so they can slide back and forth at will. the generals i have interviewed say we could never win as long as they can do that. do you agree? >> it is awfully hard. very few countries in one generation fight the same or twice. we have done that in afghanistan. the biggest take away for me is a whole lot easier if you have the pakistanis helping you overthrow the government in kabul. if you were the government trying to deal with the insurgency backed by the isi.

the 1980's war worked for us because the pakistanis essentially took all the risks, all the casualties and were the strategic masters of the war. it was not charlie wilson's war. it was the pakistani dictators war. >> it was a great friend of his. >> we have tried to do the opposite in the last 12 years and it is very, very hard to do. the only solution that makes any sense is to build up an afghan army that can deal with that sanctuary for the long haul. >> you just said which is interesting -- it is wonderful reading. the idea that we all are familiar with the idea that the soviet union came in and essentially occupied a controlled afghanistan. and conventional lori is that the afghanistan tribes, with the help of mujahedin kicked them out. the afghanistan tribes kicked

them out because they got sidewinder missiles from the united states. charlie wilson played a role in that. you are saying to really kick the russians out was the president of pakistan, a military dictator. >> that is right. jimmy carter and ronald reagan made the same kind of deal that winston churchill and franklin delano made with joseph stalin. we needed a bad guy on our side. and that was the bad way -- the bad guy we got. there were consequences to that. inevitably, there was going to be. i think jimmy carter and ronald reagan knew there would be consequences. if you step back and look at the whole thing -- the secret war in the 1980's was a global game changer. the cost of roughly $3 billion and not a single american casualty, the soviet union was defeated within six months, the berlin wall fell. the warsaw pact imploded and the soviet union went out of business. >> it began with kicking the soviet union out of afghanistan?

>> i think that is right. i think that was the catalyst. we will never know if the soviet union had not been defeated in afghanistan what would've happened. >> and we will never know if somebody different than gorbachev would've been the head of the party and would've resisted. >> we know what did happen. they lost in the cold war came to an end and with the end of that, the danger of nuclear war between the united states and russia. toand were there are lessons be learned from that for the united states after they kicked al qaeda out, the taliban and? taliban? >> i think the big lesson was you cannot just walk away from afghanistan. this is a very dangerous part of the world. it seems to be a place where important things happen because not only was it a global changer in terms of the end of the cold war, you can say 25 years later it was the start of the global

jihad. >> it is often repeated by the media and every analyst that comes to this table -- if you read your history, you know the afghans are so tough and independent and so tribal, that they will kick you out. look at what happened to the russians and before them and the united states. >> it is called the graveyard of history. a lot of countries have conquered afghanistan. alexander the great conquered it. the mongols. the british actually won the second anglo afghan war. that is why history is helpful. if somebody gives you these nice little slogans -- was that really right? >> so then, the dictator of pakistan get some credit -- a lot of credit with the help of american arms. they kicked the russians out. and then what happened to afghanistan?

>> we lost interest. a terrible civil war happens. the city of kabul was not destroyed in that war. it was destroyed in a war between others. united states walk away from it. the consequence of that was the rise of the taliban and in the end, the arrival of al qaeda. now, looking back we can all see this. to be fair, to president george bush senior, he had pretty full plate at the time. the disagreement -- and the creation of new countries like ukraine, the liberation of eastern europe, the reunification of germany, the invasion of kuwait. afghanistan would have been number one or number two on president reagan's priority list went down to maybe 50 for president bush's list. the consequence -- bush 41. no american attention to afghanistan, it disintegrated into civil war.

it became a broken state, and from that emerged the telegram. taliban. >> you get the impression that this was part of the warning and admonishment of charlie wilson. >> it was. i think charlie wilson's war is a great book. and an even better movie. and little bits -- a little much too much importance on the texas congress -- >> an interesting texas congress. there is also this -- isi in pakistan and osama bin laden. tell me what you know. >> what i know for sure is that osama bin laden arrived in pakistan within a week after the soviet invasion. the invasion takes place on christmas eve 1979 and osama bin laden shows up within a week or so before the first cia arms and money arrived. he starts off as basically a fundraiser. then it becomes a combat engineer.

he was building tunnels, underground storage facilities for the isi to assist the afghans. he actually built one inside of afghanistan. >> that was the family business in saudi arabia. >> he was an expert at construction. he knew what he was doing. he actually had access to his family's huge fortune and all of their construction deals. the isi had to be intimately involved in all that. >> there was a relationship between the isi, the pakistani secret service, and osama bin laden from the get-go? >> absolutely. the second thing we know for isi whothat the

introduced osama bin laden to omar in 1998 when osama bin laden came back to afghanistan. he left at the end of the war, goes off the sudan, the united states getting kicked out of there. the third thing we know -- when president clinton fired tomahawk missiles after the attack on the two american embassies in east africa, tried to kill him, we know who was at that location. 20 isi officers, 10 of whom were killed. we know that for a fact. now what were they doing at that , location? obviously, they were getting ready to meet osama bin laden. >> did he leave in turn one way rather than another way? >> there are all kinds of stories. he may have been there. we may have been half an hour off. what we do know is who was there -- the isi. when this connection, this relationship came to an end or if it ever came to an end is where the biggest mysteries we still do not know. >> the relationship came to an end? >> between isi and bin laden.

that hideout he was in pakistan when the seals found him and brought justice to him in 2011 -- very suspicious. >> he could not have existed like that without -- >> he was hiding in a facility less than a mile from the front door of the pakistani equivalent of centers. a closed military zone. pakistani generals routinely overflew that facility day in and day out. none of them ever saw this tall man walking around in the roof? nobody in the pakistani intelligence service ever wondered what was going on in that building? the people in the region referred to the house -- they knew someone who was from or had connections -- >> why?

why would they know that? >> it must've been clear to people in the neighborhood that somebody important -- somebody with connections -- >> do you believe this went up to the chief of staff of the army? >> i know a lot about the isi. i have worked with them. the isi is not a rogue institution. you do not get promoted by blowing up embassies. and not telling your boss you're going to do it. the isi knew -- >> you wouldn't be hiding osama bin laden without telling. he had to know. i have had one u.s. official after another sip at this table -- sit at this table and say as far as we know, they did not know. >> we had no smoking gun, that is true. what do you expect you will find? a little button inside the hideout that says "in trouble -- push this button." >> you believe the general had to know?

>> he would know. he was general director of the isi. >> it is the nature of the beast. doesn't say anything good about him. does it? and we thought he was our -- >> pakistani generals have remarkable capacity to persuade americans that they are on our side. that includes the generals. generations of americans have looked in the eyes of pakistani generals and believe they are on our side. to give jimmy carter and ronald reagan credit, i think they would know they are on our side this week for this objective. dated income to the belief that to the did not come belief that he was eternally on our side. >> you're either with us or against us. we are going to do this and we

need you but if you are against us, we will do terrible things to you. >> i am sure when he tells you you're either with us or against us, it is a pretty powerful threat. >> you know what he means. don't to you? >> i think the general looked at this and said, ok, i have to make some adjustments. i have to play the game carefully, but in time, i can go back -- >> situational ethics. >> in his book which is a fantastic book, his memoirs should be in the fiction section of every library. he says he did a wargame after they came to see him and concluded that if pakistan and the united states went to war, india would be the biggest beneficiary. i don't really think he did that but it tells us that the pakistani generals first thought is about india. how does this influence our relationship with india? >> back to afghanistan -- you believe they had to know from the get-go, they had to know when he came there because now that we've established that he never lies, he sat in this chair and said to me -- he couldn't have been there for five years.

he was not there for five years. was a longer, shorter? he said shorter.

>> i think the general looked at this and said, ok, i have to make some adjustments. i have to play the game carefully, but in time, i can go back -- >> situational ethics. >> in his book which is a fantastic book, his memoirs should be in the fiction section of every library.

he says he did a wargame after they came to see him and concluded that if pakistan and the united states went to war, india would be the biggest beneficiary. i don't really think he did that but it tells us that the pakistani generals first thought is about india. how does this influence our relationship with india? >> back to afghanistan -- you believe they had to know from the get-go, they had to know when he came there because now that we've established that he never lies, he sat in this chair and said to me -- he couldn't have been there for five years. he was not there for five years. was a longer, shorter? he said shorter. >> right after osama bin laden was killed, he pointed out to the pakistani press -- i remember that house. i remember jogging by it. it was a little too revealing about exactly what he should or should not have known. his motives are hard to understand. >> this is way off the wall for me. we know a bit about how to get people a price to come over to our side of. we have done that in our history. how do we find someone at isi to say to us they got him? >> because the isi regards the cia has threat number one. not only in terms of us penetrating them for information like that, but us penetrating them for most important information. where are pakistan's nuclear weapons? when we went in and got osama bin laden, the reaction of most pakistani generals was not oh, my god. most pakistani generals response was if they can do this, could they steal our nuclear arsenal?

it is apples and oranges. one person versus a couple of hundred nuclear weapons is a hugely different. that is their reaction. it tells you they regard us as the existential threat along with india. >> it is sometimes said that if iran gets a nuclear weapon, the saudis would go to their friends of pakistan who they have given a lot of money and say we need some weapons. is that your understanding? >> certainly a lot of smoke about that. very close relations. there was no closer relationship than the one between saudi arabia and pakistan. the prime minister this week is in saudi arabia meeting with all the officials. he has lived there in exile for them first decade of the century. i do not have proof positive. i do not have a signed contract. but, in extremist, if saudi arabia goes to pakistan and says we need nuclear weapons, it will be hard for any pakistani leader to say no. >> i hear you. there is this question -- do the saudis worry a lot about something like the arab spring could come to them? >> absolutely. when arab spring began, the king invested $130 billion in buying off the saudi population. that is a lot of money. that tells me he and the other royals were worried what happened to them. they responded in the best way they could -- make sure everyone has everything they want, try to buy everyone off. i think it worries them a lot. i think it is one of the reasons why they supported the military coup in egypt. within minutes, they were the first to endorse the government. >> and protested loudly about the overthrowing and blaming the united states for being too quick to call for his resignation.

>> they are propping up the egyptian government with billions and billions of dollars. >> the egyptian government is less dependent on the united states. a point they make every time they have a chance. >> i think the saudis were scared to death. they feel little more comfortable now and not a whole lot more. the middle east that surrounds them must look very dangerous. the iranian enemy, isis, iraq. islamic extremists but not the pro-saudi islamic extremists. that means the king of saudi arabia is an illegitimate custodian. >> he wants to be the king of all of islam. >> if you are sitting in the royal palace, it is a dangerous situation. in egypt, you rolled back history. for how long? >> do you think they went to him and said you can do it?

>> in the past, the egyptian defense and has a long-standing relationship with the saudi intelligence service. >> it shows you history -- to understand history, you look at the relationships. >> when he took over and the king called him five minutes later -- >> the king. >> i think that was prearranged. i don't think he was watching cnn and he called. the coup was partially made in saudi arabia. ♪

>> what you think of khaleed? >> he is a very determined man. >> only because of king hussein because the israelis but

-- put something in his ear that made him go into a coma. >> and they tried to assassinate him. >> that was back in the 1990's. >> i was working for president clinton. a phone call came in saying i need your help right away. israelis have done something in my capital city which is inexcusable. they try to kill a guest inside my country. reluctantly, he asked to did it because the whole team that cared it out had been captured. he agreed to send over the serum. >> is that because king hussein called? or was it because president clinton called up to get that -- >> probably both. i think clinton's call was critical. i think clinton's call showed that he was in a way up place. his next choice was he fired the head that carried out the operation which is ironic because he didn't want them do it from the get-go. >> fascinating.

what does hamas want? >> hamas wants to survive in gaza. ts to come out of this war having taking everything israel can throw at it and still be standing. >> therefore, becoming prominent in the arab world and the palestinian world. >> to show that they are, they call themselves the resistance, and that the palestinian authority are collaborators. that is what they want to show. it is a terrible tragedy that so many gazans and israelis are living in hell. >> i never quite understood -- they came there and then the

israelis came and said we are leaving. we are going to give it to you. we are going to take these settlers out, which is no easy thing to do and handed right back to you. they got headed right back to you. probably only person who could have done that. >> absolutely. >> then they just throw it away. did they do that because they had real grievances? >> they have grievances then. >> they gave it to them but they left it very difficult for them to -- >> i think the bigger mistake in hindsight which is always much easier is unilateral control was a mistake. he should've negotiated with the palestinian authority in which the palestinian authority got credit for this. by doing it unilaterally -- >> he didn't want to wait. >> he didn't like the palestinian authority. >> what is going to happen in gaza?

>> it will get worse before it gets -- >> how much worse? >> it could mean israel re-occupies the gaza strip. they may never say the are doing that. if the israeli defense forces stay where they are today, they will be occupying about half of the gaza strip. >> they believed they had to do that because they want to wipe out hamas once and for all? >> what they say is that they want to eliminate the tunnels. they would like to see hamas collapsed but that is dangerous as well because who will take its place? >> is it impossible for hamas and the palestinian authority to form a palestinian government that is not dedicated to the overthrow of israel and believes they could live in a two state solution?

>> i believe at the end of the day, the solutions for the conflict has been staring us in the face since camp david back in 2000. the clinton parameters that emerged. that is basically what played out -- a two-state solution. some minor swaps. >> the right of return that works. >> it will primarily be at the west bank. it has been staring us in the face for over 15 years. it is a question of political will. >> on both sides? to take the risk and trust the other side. >> it is increasingly clear that political will will probably not generate from within the region. it is going to take the united states very tough series of negotiation's to provide the political will. >> could be aided by the arab league or some arab -- >> there are a lot of people who

can help. whether they will or not is another question. >> why does qatar support hamas? >> qatar's foreign policy can be explained by rivals in saudi arabia. a rivalry in which it is completely imbalanced. qatar is a tiny little city state. saudi arabia is a big country and home to the two holiest places in islam. qatar doesn't want to be told by saudi arabia had to do its business and has enough money that he can spite the saudis and do whatever it wants to do. now they like to spite the saudis.

qatar will be pro-muslim. >> they created al jazeera. >> they gave united states are crucial military base in the region. >> they play both sides all the time. >> every side all the time. and makes them clever. whether it makes them smart, i do not know. from the saudi standpoint, qatar is the village by got out of control. >> what are they prepared to do what the village out of control? >> they have been pretty tough on them this year. by gulf standards, this is tough. >> they are talking all the time. >> they are all talk. they may be doing something else. it is very interesting that qatar's bid to host the world cup has been the subject of all

these revelations of corruption. i wonder where all those revelations are coming from. >> do you think it is a neighbor? [laughter] >> it would not shock me at all. >> they support hamas just to spite their neighbors or they want some kind of islamist street cred? >> of that is an important factor as well. as the only air a country which it is today actively supporting hamas, they are getting a lot of credit on the street. they are actually supporting the palestinians who are fighting and dying. >> innocents dying. israel -- do you believe that they want a two state solution and do you believe they really want the best interests of the palestinians or do they like the situation now? they want just to play that out? >> i think most israelis -- >> i am talking about the people in power.

>> i think netanyahu and his government was quite content with the situation and felt they could mismanage it, they should keep it where it is. he is not an enthusiastic supporter of the two state solution. only after his arm was put behind his back. >> they are prepared to carry it out? suppose you had him on the phone now, when you tell him it is in your national security interests to solve this problem? >> i would tell him it is in israel's national interest to find a solution that strengthens the palestinians that want to make a deal with you. and you figure it out. i am certainly willing to give you my advice but that ought to be your prime objective.

>> i think he believes this. the national security interest with israel -- he hated going to the white house and shaking yasser arafat's hand. >> the last head of the israeli internal services sent publicly that he failed to focus on the real issues facing israelis. he focus also on the iran issue. this is a man who spent hours and hours in meetings with the prime minister over many years. i think he probably has a right. >> he focuses to divert attention from the palestinian issue. he says iran is the big enemy and nuclear weapons by them would be the worst thing to

happen. >> according to the head, real problem israel confronts and i think it is obvious to anyone watching tv today, this relationship with the palestinians that are not 1000 miles away but are next door. they have to find a way to live with each other -- >> a strong palestine next to israel with strong trade, strong bonds is the best thing that could possibly happen? long-term national security for israel.

how long do you think it will take for that to happen? are you pessimistic and is time not on israel's side because of it? >> if you look at the development of al qaeda, the idea, i do not think time is on israel's side. the idea of al qaeda, that jihad is the only solution is a growing problem. you see it in iraq, syria, yemen. five years ago, you didn't see al qaeda ideals in syria or egypt and now you do. >> it is growing. >> those trends are very disturbing if you are someone who cares about the survival and security of the state of israel. >> it is also threatening to the security of lots of places. >> absolutely. target number one -- osama bin laden and everything he said in his entire career.

at the end of the day, when we have defeated the americans, we will move on to israel. >> he wanted to drive the americans out of the leased. >> osama bin laden basically took what he did or was a part of him winning the war against the soviets in afghanistan in the 1980's and said -- let us do the same thing to the americans. we will encourage them to come into afghanistan and then we will fight a guerrilla war against them. sooner or later, they will be exhausted and defeated and go home. he didn't realize he was going to get a bonus. that the americans were not only go into afghanistan, they would go into iraq. he would have two quagmires to bog americans down. we were able to find afghans who wanted to be on our side. that is a big difference between the soviet war and the american war. in the soviet war, the vast majority of afghans were on the side of afghanistan. in this war, the vast majority of afghans are on our side, at least they have been until now.

>> is this the most alarming thing you see on the world front now -- the rise of al qaedaism? or radical jihadism? is that the most vexing challenge to america? it is not a state. >> it is vexing into very dangerous ways. al-qaeda 3.0 is a threat to us directly in terms of tax on the united states homeland. the national counter-terrorism center has raised the alarm that

all these westerners going to iraq and syria will come back. just like the volunteers to went to afghanistan in 1980's, they will come home with an agenda. not to foreigners their medals, there will be new battles ahead. number two is the global jihadist in pakistan which our under pressure now from the american drone operations are the most dangerous at the end of the day because what they want to do is provoke a war between two nuclear weapon states -- india and pakistan. that, to me, is the worst possible outcome.

>> why would they want to do that? >> groups that attacked mumbai see india as an artificial creation. they are as crazy as these people in iraq but more dangerous because they are talking about playing with nuclear weapons. >> have we come close to them somehow being able to steal or get a nuclear weapon? they have enough money to buy one. >> it is a vexing issue. i think if you look at the revelations that we got from snowden, not what they are top priority is are. it says pakistan's nuclear weapons and the security of the top three or four priorities in the entire world. >> do whatever we can to making them secure. >> the pakistanis do not really want our help because they are convinced any help we give them in securing the nuclear weapons is actually an effort to find out where the nuclear weapons are. they are probably right about that. >> why is it they will not let us talk? >> he didn't pirate nuclear material around the world all by

himself. that is a fairytale. he did it with the help of the pakistani army. he was able to fly around the world on pakistani air force jets. and sell stuff. and have it delivered. the last time i checked on expedia, you cannot get a pakistani air force jet to deliver you or stuff. pakistani military was intimately involved in everything he was doing. a lot of pakistani politicians were intimately involved. bhutto was involved in the early negotiations with north korea on exchanging nuclear secrets in return for missile parts. she even admits it in her memoirs. if mr. khan was on your show and told you the truth -- it would be highly embarrassing for the government of pakistan and for many pakistanis.

>> yet, he is a national hero in pakistan because he gave them nuclear power. >> he gave the nuclear weapons. >> who is most likely to get in next? >> iran is closest by far. i think there is a chance for this deal because i think parties for this deal would prefer a deal to nuclear war. >> they don't want to be decimated. >> they are going to put a very hard deal on the table. what concerns me is with the ukraine situation, we are going to see the russians fall off the wagon. >> it didn't happen. it is one of those what-if questions. supposed jimmy carter said he is going to level tehran. i realize i am sacrificing great americans but i am prepared to do it because this is embarrassing, worst than embarrassing. it is a declaration of war and we want to win this war. we realize there will be casualties but you will be one of them. what would've happened?

>> i suspect he would've called our bluff. >> because he was a religious fanatic? did they have information to believe that or were you aware of any information? >> i work on that problem for 444 days. it was pretty strong information that they were willing to sacrifice their country. intelligence information from people around him. i will give you a counterpoint. when jimmy carter was told that the iranians were seriously thinking about putting the hostages on trial as war criminals, he sent that message that if you do this, there will be war.

>> that seems to me contradictory. >> i'm afraid my answer is contradictory on that one. my gut tells me khomeini would've called our bluff, at least in the early days. when carter did send a very tough message i think in august or september of 1980, they never went on trial. >> do you know any other way they could've got those hostages out other than the way they tried? >> no. in the desert one tragedy was of all the possible outcomes of that mission much better than some of the disasters that could have happened later on. >> like? >> had we gotten into tehran, getting those hostages and commandos all the way outside of the country, it would've been a difficult mission.

that is why bob gates when he looked at the mission to kill osama bin laden, his mind was preoccupied with desert one. it was a real longshot. it failed early on. we could have failed even more catastrophically on the streets of tehran. >> he was in the cia at that time. the interesting thing is what he wanted to do is bomb the hell out of the building and not know exactly if he was there or not. that was a gutsy call by the president. >> a very gutsy call. i think he did exactly the right thing. i would've advised him to do that. >> suppose bob gates said how hard this is. this could turn out like desert

one. what would've you said? >> i have a long history of bob gates telling me i am wrong about something or right. i think the world of bob gates but i think that's one more thing i would say. when he decided to send the seal team in, he made a decision not to tell the pakistanis. when you stand back -- think about it for a minute -- by 2011, two presidents, bush and obama, had given -- given --

pakistan a $25 billion in aid. why? to fight al qaeda. the moment of truth when the president of the united states was told this is where he is, he decided he cannot trust them. $25 billion he gave them. >> what if we had not given them that money? >> $25 billion was, in my view, a worthwhile effort and seeing we could bribe the pakistanis. we know the answer. we could not. my response today would be we tried it. it was worth a try, but don't keep trying to bribe them. >> do you believe the mission could work? in other words, i was told someone said to the president this is what we do. we pick up people and bring them home -- that is what we do. the president said ok. >> i think that 10 years of warfare in iraq and afghanistan have honed the capabilities of our special forces to a level which is unique in the world. >> when are you writing your memoir?

when will you get clearance? >> there's not much i can talk about so there wouldn't be much point in that. >> thank you for coming. the book is called "what we won: america's secret war in afghanistan 1979 to 1989." bruce riedel, thank you. >> it was a pleasure. >> thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

>> live from pier three in san francisco, welcome to bloomberg west, where we cover innovation, technology and the future of business. i'm emily chang. apple reportedly hits the robot and on its new content delivery network will with a portion available in the united states and europe. his means apple can control virtually every aspect of the user experience and will no longer have to rely on third parties to deliver content. the death toll from the ebola outbreak in west africa has grown to 887. a second american infected with the virus is expected to arrive in atlanta tomorrow. we speak with a health expert abho