>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." a speechent obama gave thursday night announcing an executive order that would

protect millions of undocumented immigrants from being deported. >> to those members of congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better or question the wisdom of me acting where congress has failed, i have one answer. pass a bill. i want to work with both parties to pass a more permanent legislative solution. the day i signed that bill into law, the actions i take will no longer be necessary. , don't let a disagreement over a single issue be a dealbreaker on every issue. that is not how our democracy works. congress certainly should not shut down our government again just because we disagree on this. .mericans are tired of gridlock what our country needs from us right now is a common purpose. >> john dickerson is the chief political director of cbs news. any surprises? surprises only in

that it has a little bit of a limitation. there was some thought that the president would extend this protection to the so-called parents of the so-called dreamers. he did not go that far, but he still went pretty far and a lot farther than republicans wanted him to go. >> to say what he said and taking the fight that he may sending ad, is he signal that he has come a long way from where he began when he came to washington? >> he sure is. when he campaigned as a senator, he was going to change the toxic atmosphere that had grown up over the bush years. he was going to have a new way of operating in washington. that started to die almost as soon as he encountered the republican opposition, which was very much against him when he first came to washington. it has been slowly eroding. what is different here is the president is not just cajoling, not putting forward policies

that republicans do not like. this is a bit of a punch in the nose. this is action he is taking that has real consequences. now he is saying, go ahead and undo it, republicans. that is a further step and sets the tone for his final two years. he chosen that? >> he has chosen it for a couple of reasons. he does not think republicans are going to move. theminks they have given plenty of chances and opportunities over the last years. cite the fact that it has been 500 days that house republicans have not moved. they do not think republicans are going to move. also, a have to act quickly. they are worried about the lame-duck status that sets in at the end of his presidency. he wants to move fast and do big things. this might be the biggest thing he is able to do in his final two years. >> did the president make a mistake in not going to congress before the midterms and asking

for the kind of immigration reform he wanted when the odds hen because than -- t of the results of the election? >> the white house would say two things. the president was operating under guidance he had gotten from john boehner and marco rubio, who said that if you get in the middle of a fight of immigration, if you start meddling in congressional progress on this, immediately republicans are going to have their back up and they are not going to want to do anything that you overtly support. stay general, stay away from the details, and we will handle it and try to get it through. ultimately, republicans in the house made the calculation that they would not put forward legislation of any kind because it would create an internal fight in their party. why should they care apart themselves when they saw the 2014 elections as being very good for republicans. they wanted to keep the focus on the president. next the congress that we will

have in january, is it possible that this could lead to a government shutdown? >> the possibility seems remote. the is as much a test of new republican relationships with themselves as it is a test between the president and the new republican leaders in congress. the challenge for republican leaders is can they control their wing that is closest to the grassroots? findroots conservatives this deeply offensive. they think that what the president is trying to do is not just change immigration policy, but the very fabric of america. they are very passionate about this. that is reflected through some of the lawmakers. an orderly, swift, and cuff response to the president, but not one that talks about impeachment or a government shutdown. it would be politically advantageous for the president. >> republican leaders believe they have to show that they can govern. they have been given control of both the house and the senate,

that they can go forward with the people's business and do it in an orderly way. theyht over a shutdown, feel like they will lose that fight and while they are losing that fight, they are not showing people the things that they care most about, which is their economic well-being. they need to show that they can deliver on that question. >> can the president be very tough on border crossings without losing the support of the hispanic vote in the hispanic community by saying to them i can get you more things about amnesty and the absence of deportation? allow me to be tougher on the border. >> i think that is a model for the way he is likely to proceed. we saw him do it here with the executive action, where he is deporting one group of undocumented workers but putting new money on focusing on criminals and on the border. i think that is the kind of

trade-off that he would be ok with. >> how will this play out in 2016? >> we saw that hillary clinton came out and supported the president right after he made his remarks. there were a lot of democrats who were wondering how she would play this. she has associated herself with the president on this and that is important not just for immigration policy and latino voters, but sending the signal about how close she is going to stay to barack obama. one of the things we saw in the 2000 14 elections, the democrats cannot really get away from the president. a lot of democrats think if hillary clinton runs, she will not be able to distance herself from barack obama and should not even try. she did not try to distance herself on this one. on the republican side, this is a big opportunity for all republicans who want to run for president to define themselves on an issue that the grassroots cares a great deal about. it is a substantive question -- how do you want to handle undocumented workers?

there is also a tactical western. in other words, you can have a position that is very tough on undocumented workers but suggests restraint in combat with the president. keeping in mind some of these political realities. candidates of 2016 position themselves in this argument will tell us a lot about which bucket of conservative voters they are going after in the presidential primaries. >> what more do reform advocates want that the president is not prepared, either in executive order or legislation, to give them? >> i think they want more protections for that larger share of undocumented workers in the united ace. or 12 million1.3 undocumented workers, they would want larger protections. he has been saying this so much now that republicans are using these quotes against him. he has circumscribed in terms of his discussion on deportation. -- theys may have gone

have gone as far as he can get on that. advocates would like further action from him, but he has used up as much a legal authority as he can. >> person who traveled around the country for democrats advocating democratic elections in the midterms, that person told me you cannot imagine how deep the feeling is about immigration in this country. do you understand that when they say that? >> yes. on both sides. the reason the president had to act was he sees himself as acting in the large sweep of history. if we look at his second inaugural address, you saw him talk about rights for same-sex marriage, for women. talking about civil rights progress that happened while he was president. this can be put in that category. that is one motivation. the other was that he could not delay on this because the latino

community and the democratic constituency that is supportive, the folks that elected him and reelected him would have been furious. there have already been enough delays. they felt it would have been a damage to his legacy but also to other democrats who want to run in 2016. on the republican side, it is this feeling among conservatives that this is messing around with the core of america in terms of allowing people who broke the law to get off the free here at -- here. is a red-hothis issue on the conservative side. >> thank you so much. >> thanks, charlie. >> charlie, the iranian nuclear in a hit another deadline few days amid indications that no final deal is likely but there could be an extension on the talks. we are joined by david ignatius, the premier foreign-policy columnist for the new york post,

and the legal policy analyst and , we areast expert pleased to have you both here. david, let's talk about what is going to happen next week. >> the honest answer is that we speak.know as we the indications are that they are still too far apart on the .asic numbers u.s.e minds of negotiators, to provide sufficient breakout time. they would like to see a year before iran can assemble a bomb through a combination of a lower stockpile of enriched material or reduced number of centrifuges that can enrich the material further. they have been tinkering with these numbers for the last year. it appears that they are still too far apart to get to a deal. but we don't know. , ifwe don't know further

they can't quite get there on monday, will they announce the progress they have made over the last year, which most analysts think is significant? and make some point -- some kind of joint communiqué that describes what they have achieved and go on with an extension. and the u.s.ry chief negotiator said they are not looking for an extension. >> the big challenge here is finding a technical resolution to what is really a political conflict. the members of congress talk issues as a nuclear concern for them. iran's regional policies, its rejection of israel's existence, its rejection of u.s. influence in that region. my sense is that we are not

going to reach a comprehensive resolution. neither will it be a comprehensive failer -- failure. i think both washington and tehran realize that no one wants to go back to status quo. president obama certainly does not want to go to war against iran. we will kick the can down the march, i still do not see us being in a position whereby we are able to really comprehend -- comprehensively resolve this issue. >> is that because of those larger geopolitical issues that you just described -- is the big issue centrifuges, rmb, &d, inspections? >> all of the above. this guy is going to soon be the longest-termed autocrat in the middle east.

the only person ruling longer is the sultan of oman, who is on his deathbed. leader, notreme doing a nuclear deal is a big economic risk because iran is facing major economic challenges. it is a potentially larger political risk to do a nuclear deal because this is someone who, for 25 years, he has prioritized hostility with the united states and transitions vis-à-vis the outside world. to make a major concession like this nuclear deal would require a long-term position. that could be risky for him at home. states, the first of politics is know your bases. the supreme leader's base is transitions towards the united states. >> one could argue that it is in interests tos'

have a deal but both countries faced similar elements, whatever we want to call them, hard-line factions that complicate this. >> both countries have hard-lines at home that say, how could you compromise this whole regime? , when i went to tehran last december to interview the iranian foreign minister, who is their principal negotiator and is meeting with secretary kerry as we speak, i was struck by several things. first, the yearning of most iranians to be part of the modern world. i mean, this is a sophisticated, technologically-advanced country and the reason that president rouhani was elected by a wide margin when he was not expected to get that many votes is he

said we do not want to be a country that only has friendships with russia and china. we want to be part of the world. that really resonated with iranians. on the other side, you have this revolutionary guard. henry kissinger is famous for saying that you can deal with iran if it is a nation, but not if it is a cause. in other words, once it starts -- stops seeing its identity as a revolutionary nation, it will be possible to negotiate deals like this and others. i think that is one question. i was not sure when i was there in december. one senior person very close to the supreme leader said to me any deal is unacceptable because any deal will mean our revolution is over. is the benefitat for the west. if they make a deal, even if it

is an ugly deal, it will mean they have begun to turn. >> you wrote a fascinating column a few weeks ago in which , talking aboutm a potentially key figure here, the head of the iranian security council. have any sense of the role he has played in recent weeks? tripwas struck on a recent to the middle east that his name came up in every capital. officials were well-connected with their intelligence. someone who was a new figure on the scene in iran. worldense, he bridges the of the supreme leader and the revolutionary guard on the one hand and president rouhani and the state on the other. he runs the national security council. interestingly, he was the person who managed to get a deal in supported alran's

-maliki, this polarizing prime minister who served disastrously over the last few years, he was the head of the national security council was the one who brokered the deal. he is seen as the rival or maybe the moderating face of the head orce, the figure of revolution, the man who is out there fighting the battles in lebanon and bahrain, all of these places where iran is fomenting trouble. >> it touches on a larger point, the rise of the revolutionary guards within iran. we were used to calling the iranian government the clerical regime. in reality, the institution of the revolutionary guards have , wieldinghe clergy domestic power and controlling iran's foreign policy. david touched upon iranian society.

and its aspirations to be part of the outside world. this is really a paradox of iran that you have, a society which aspires to be like south korea, prosperous and globally-integrated, ruled by a government whose instincts more closely resemble north korea, isolationism, ideological purity. the real challenge you have is that the policies that we use to counter iran's nuclear aspirations, political and economic isolation, in many ways, and trenches these hard-line forces in iran that are trying to get rid of -- somehow, we have to start thinking more creatively about how we get on the right side of the iranian people's aspirations as well. >> yet those sanctions have certainly been effective. they really bite. that is the incentive for the other side. food the iranians are good at suffering.

they suffered through a long war with iraq. i think americans should be careful in assuming that additional sanctions will bring them to their knees, to capitulation. i would not think that that would happen. >> that would be a mistake. >> i think that another danger here is that the person who really deserves most credit for iran's national isolation was the previous president. united outside world against iran. premature, unilateral sanctions, that jeopardizes the international coalition against iran. are there any differences in recent weeks or months with china, russia, germany, great britain, and france? my conversations with

russian diplomats, they have stressed that we are very much a part on this coalition. with anyot want a deal more concessions than the u.s. is willing to offer. the hardest-line coalition appears to be france. reacty in which they will to whatever is negotiated, that is most concerning. plus israel. saudi arabia has decided if a deal is made, are we going to insist on nuclear programs for the rest of us? that is a big proliferation. then you are heading towards a region where everybody has a bomb making program. they said they are going to do that. do they mean it? that is more dangerous. he has set himself absolutely against this deal and said over and over again that it is dangerous. what is he going to do about it? there is always the risk that israel might decide that this deal has been negotiated and

leaves israel more insecure and takes some kind of military or unconventional actions. , there are so many branches in the road that people will need to think about because they lead us into areas where they could be military conflict. >> what happens if there is not a deal? if this collapses, either short-term or they try to go to march and do not get any kind of long-term deal, what is the likelihood of military action, either by the israelis or the americans? >> well, it has been believed that the israelis have concluded that they do not have the weapons to strike iran hard in these mountain facilities where they keep some of their centrifuges to make an attack worthwhile. the israelis cannot -- i think

the danger is a little bit different. we have a region in absolute chaos. it has just been turned upside down. it is disintegrating. a real dilemma for the united states going forward is should we try to work with this iranian regime to try to rebalance the region? should we try to draw iran and saudi arabia together for talks about regional stability? should we try to bring shia and sunni ballots? alance? this is threatening to become a destructive, 30-years war. i think that, for president obama, is a crucial issue. they decided to put the nuclear issue first but this influence

is even bigger right behind it. >> i think the likelihood of military action is extremely low. president obama, if you are the middle east, the last thing you want to do is open up another military conflict with iran. the challenge is whether you can rely on the rent -- on iran to fight a group like isis, which is fueled by sunni disenfranchisement. if you fight sunni disenfranchisement with shia rebels, you are likely pouring more gas on the fire. i think the likelihood of military action is located iran not clever enough to drive their nuclear card 90 miles per hour. they would do it in a deliberate way not to trigger military action. >> should be a fascinating week. thank you very much. we will be back in just a moment with charlie.

>> lawrence wright is here. he won the pulitzer prize for

his book. his new book is called "thirteen days in september." it is a day by day account of the summit and the history that preceded it. he called the agreement one of the great diplomatic triumphs of the 20th century. i am pleased to have lawrence wright back at this table. >> it is good to be back. >> what makes it such a diplomatic triumph? >> there are very few instances where a piece has been cegotiated like this -- a pea has been negotiated like this. a historian was asked, has this ever happened before? the historian said, once. teddy roosevelt, the russians and the japanese. he brought them to the station and got them alone and negotiated peace. it was the first american to win the nobel peace prize. in all of history, there is very few examples -- there are very

few examples where peace has been negotiated successfully. was not a negotiation to end the war. >> it was a negotiation that ended two parties that had been at war five times in the last 30 years. >> and who would give up what. >> it was hard fought. people do not realize what a close call it was. the israelis were being asked to surrender sinai, which was their strategic depth. there was not a single arab leader in the whole arab world who recognized israel's existence. for him to go to israel as he did and broker peace with israel , it was an extraordinary step for both men. >> at cap david, the thing almost collapsed until jimmy carter.

idea.ter had a naïve he liked both of these men initially. but he had the idea that you could bring these honorable men, put them in this mountaintop in maryland, away from the press, and they would get to know each other and like each other and they would find their own way to peace. he said that by the end of the second day, they were screaming at each other at the top of their lungs. carter has to physically separate them. it was not until the fifth day that he realized he would have to do something that he did not want to do, which was to put forward an american plan. when he did that, it was no longer about the peace between israel and egypt. it had to do with their relationship with the united states. when sadat called a helicopter

and threatened to leave, carter was never angry or in his life. he said, if you do this, the relationship between our two countries is over. do you really want to do this? it was a real come to jesus moment for sadat. >> and begin said he was threatening to leave. carter said he would go to congress tomorrow and tell them you are responsible for the breakdown of the talks. he even had a speechwriter draw up a speech in which he would ask the israeli people to vote down their own government. >> none of that work and they were going to close up shop and carter went to see begin. >> you are talking about the last day. --is so amazing to think sadat had asked carter for a side letter about jerusalem stating the american position, which is that it is an occupied territory.

the letterspplied in the accords. begin got it sunday afternoon, the 13th day. the networks had already been alerted that the signing is at night. they are setting up the east room of the white house and begin exploded and said you have got to get rid of this or there will be no signing. carter said, i cannot betray sadat. off and saidit there would be no agreement. carter went back to his cabin as depressed as he had ever been in his life. and it happened that there was a photograph of the three men sitting on the porch in the early days of negotiation. carter had had copies printed for begin's 9 grandchildren. he thoughtfully had his secretary call israel and get the names of those children. the secretary, whose name was susan, decided to call up israel

and find out the names of his eight grandchildren. writing, best wishes, jimmy carter. i wrote his name and i signed it. i took it over to begin's cabin and he was ready to go to washington in defeat. he looked and said, thank you, mr. president. he was angry with me. he turned around and looked at the first photograph and he called out the name of his grandchild. then he looked at the second one and his lips began to quiver and tears ran down his cheeks. also.shed tears finally, he looked around and said, why don't we try one more time? then he went back to his cabin the signing was off. just then, the phone rang and he said he would sign. >> did begin say why he did it? >> carter said that he would amend the language of the side

letter. the only change that he made -- originally, he quoted the u.n. ambassador owing back to arthur goldberg, spelling out that this is american policy. the one change you made was that american policy is as it has been stated by the american ambassador. there was no substantive change, it was just cover for begin to accept it. >> tell me about each of these guys who were there. sadat, begin, carter. not in the stuff that they know, but the stuff that made them who they were. dat was this great idealist. he grew up in a little town in the nile delta. very rural, impoverished territory. but he had this sense of destiny. bunch ofas a boy, a older kids were going swimming in an irrigation canal. they all jumped in and he jumped

in after them and then he realized that he could not swim. he said his thought was if i die, egypt will have lost anwar sadat. what kind of child things like that? when he was 12, gandhi came through the suez canal on his way to england to negotiate the future of india. this made a huge impression on sadat. this small man with the fate of the empire in his hands. he actually took off his clothes and started wearing an apron and made himself a spindle. he also became a great admirer of hitler. and actually was a nazi collaborator. ii, years after world war after 15 million people are dead , he still expressed admiration for hitler's leadership and his opposition to the british. the other thing that people do

not realize about sadat, he was an assassin. he became part of a group that was a murder society. they were picking off british soldiers who were drunk and wandering around cairo at night. he turned their attention to political assassination. on two occasions, tried to assassinate the egyptian prime minister. they did succeed in killing one other government minister. he spent five years in prison for collaborating with nazis and also for the assassinations. >> and then became a general. >> he never became a general. he became vice president under nasr. he in the military? >> he was in the military, but did not rise highs highly -- rise as highly as nasr. i was living in egypt when he became president. everybody thought he was a clown

because he had missed the revolution. he had been at the movies, a double feature. overthrew the king. >> yes. nobody believed that and what sadat goodwar measure up to him. he liked sadat but there was a bit of protection. there would be no impetus to get rid of nasr. >> and they did not get rid of him. he had a heart attack. nobody expected that within a year, he had rounded up a lot of cronies did wet had no diplomatic relations.

there were practically no americans. there were thousands of russians. it was essentially a soviet military base. he expelled them all. >> that was due to the extraordinary diplomatic work of henry kissinger. >> kissinger said he was completely surprised. >> pupil editions away -- egyptians away from russia to the united states. >> but he did not do anything. fore was this huge trial america in the cold war. we were completely stunned and unwarned that this was going to happen. right after that, he did something that nobody ever imagined he would do. he was speaking to the egyptian parliament and, in the middle of the speech, he said, "i would go to the ends of the earth, i would go to israel to speak to them if it would save the life of one more egyptian soldier." everybody applauded because nobody believed it.

he was not given reported in the newspapers -- it was not even reported in the newspapers the next morning. was circlingane tel aviv. for the israelis, it was a huge psychological shift. they were not even sure that he was on the plane. they thought it might be followed explosives or terrorists. there were snipers all around the airport. the egyptian national orchestra did not know -- the israeli national orchestra did not know how to play the egyptian national anthem so they had to listen to radio cairo to get a sense of how it was played. >> fast-forward to this, how he died. i agree with many people that when he signed those camp david accords, it was his death warrant. it was not just sadat. hist of people in

delegation were fearful that they would lose their lives as well because of their association with the negotiation . it was so taboo. a number of them did not even go to the signing because they were afraid of having their names on it. >> then he was assassinated. it is also said that when he he stood up and took the bullets. is that a true story? >> it is true. you can see him standing almost at attention. here is how i understand it. when he was a little boy, his grandmother in this little village would read him -- tell him stories of this -- there were the british that come into the nearby village and they had shot some domestic foul. they were off shooting game but they shot some chickens. the villagers were angry and

started throwing stones at the soldiers. the soldiers fired and several villagers were killed. then the british had a trial and they hanged several people, including a young boy. wanted to beays that young boy. he identified with being a martyr. you can draw a line -- i am speculating, but he waited for his moment and when that moment came, he stood and received it. , one of the people who fought in the trenches. famously obstinate and difficult and a wounded man. his first memory growing up in this polish village was of polish soldiers flogging a jew. polande notches invaded -- nazis invaded poland, his

-- his-- her mother mother was in the hospital with pneumonia. his father was tied up and his pockets filled with rocks and he was drowned. menachem was hiding and was then sent to the polish gulags. he joined an old jewish unit and went to palestine. there he became the head of a terrorist organization -- he was directing his energy, at that time, toward the british. this is very controversial because the british were still fighting the nazis at the time. his goal was to expel the british from the mandated palestine. and you can argue that he did. he was a very relentless and imaginative terrorist leader. , he hadr day after day an ability to capture headlines.

notably, when the british hanged three convicted terrorists, he hanged two british sergeants and booby-trapped their bodies. he also looted the king david hotel. >> this was all under his leadership. >> yes. and those events did have an effect in turning britain against the occupation of palestine. they turned it over to the u.n. after the british left, he turned his attention to the palestinians. most notably, there was a little village near jerusalem that he felt had to be taken. he says that there was a sound at 4:00 in the morning to awaken and worn the vehicles to leave. it fell into the ditch and nobody heard it. when there was resistance, they and other groups threw hand

grenades into the windows and blew up the houses. a real massacre. there were palestinians who were leaving palestine at the time before that. after that, the gates opened and 750,000 palestinians left. >> did he form that party? >> his party chieftains was ezra viceman, who put it all together. >> benjamin netanyahu was a member of the party. >> yes. begin being the dividing point in israel's history and many respects. his premier called him a little hitler. figurealways a marginal in israel. all the prime minister's up until begin had been secular people. begin was an orthodox jew.

not very pious, but practicing. his opponent, shimon perez, was asked what happened because it was such a stunning upset. he said, what happened is the jews beat the israelis. >> tell me where you think the connection is between the israeli-palestinian issue and the emergence of al qaeda. two things happened. israelis will say it had nothing to do with us. they use it as a means to attract attention or rally noport, that there is connection. on the other hand, you can talk to arab leaders. the number one priority is an israeli-palestinian peace agreement. true.h things are the palestinians are exploited by the arab leaders. and they have always been so. at the time, they were never really absorbing them -- you

know, those refugees left in 1948 and later in 1967. in jordan, they were made a part of those societies. at the same time, this is a lingering wound that has caused so much trouble. you think about it, the population of israel and the west bank, 10 million people. that is the size of lake county. ounty.. c all the mischief that has been generated by this dispute. there is a sense that it is not eternal. 25 years ago, you could drive from gaza to golan heights within a single checkpoint. 100,000 gazans going to work in israel every day, 200,000 from the west bank. now they have been walled off and these people do not know each other at all. they have become further and further apart. i am the same-

age as israel. i was born in 1947, the year the partition a to state for the jews and for the arabs. you and i both grew up in the segregated south. we have a black man as president. history changes. it can change in the middle east. it is just going to take the kind of political courage that these three men demonstrated. >> and he was assassinated. >> these makers are easy targets. it is so easy to disrupt peace. abbas,ears ago, mahmoud the palestinian leader, had an idea. let's let the palestinian people solution.e two-state why not? were poll showed they

yearning for a two-state solution and that would demonstrate to the world their political will. they would also override hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of israel. if people could vote and show that they had different expressions of what happened, hamas abducted this israeli soldier and the israelis invaded gaza and everything went to hell . people that are opposed to peace act so quickly. there is almost a will to lose on the part of the peacemakers. israelis, in order to up 1000 --alit, gave >> i did a one-man show about that. it was interesting to me how you measure a person's life. how does someone's life get to equal 1000? what does that say about the mentality of that region?

i wish that philosophy would spread in the middle east. you see the middle east right now in its most naked form, broken down into tribes and fractured states and clans. everybody at work with everybody else. but something will come out of this. does will be for. formed.lliances will be >> what do you think of isis and how is it different? the leader of isis was al qaeda in iraq. my lasti was working on book, i was puzzled by the fact that there were so few palestinians, so few lebanese, syrians. there were some and some jordanians. saudi and, it was a

egyptian phenomenon. i thought, where are the other arabs? we are still talking about sunnis, but there was another training camp enough guest and -- in afghanistan at the same time bin laden was training al qaeda. and there was zarqawi's camp. bin laden financially supported him. they were funny -- parallel entities. if you happened to be a young man from syria, you would more likely go to zarqawi's camp then you would go to bin laden's. that was not clear to me until al qaeda and iraq erupted. i traced back the origin of that group. >> this is also connected to sadat, too. >> zarqawi had the cap and afghan -- camp in afghanistan. that became isis. from the very beginning, he wanted to affiliate with al

qaeda. bin laden was ambivalent about it. tofirst, he wanted zarqawi be in al qaeda and that he did not. they finally did agree. but he could not control him. he was so savage -- even al saying, dothen was you have to cut off their heads? can't you just shoot them question mark do you intend to kill all the shiites? do you think that is practical? the problem with al qaeda, they were so bottled up and they were not acting. here is the kelly rent -- here is zarqawi rampaging all over iraq and drawing these passionate, young hotties -- you ng jihadis. is goal was to three create -- was to create the islamic civil war that is now underway. >> and there was the lieutenant

to zawahiri. >> he had been in an american prison camp. the role theting president has played in radicalizing some of the main players. qaeda wasader of al radicalized by his experience of being tortured in egyptian prisons. when he came out, he was a butcher. transformed by that experience. i think something like that hdadi when he was in prison. there were a lot of other, more extreme figures there. the movement seemed to have gotten some kind of tailwind. of course, you cannot give isis as much credit as it seems to

have earned because they are fighting against a very weak and broken state they also have the alliance of a lot of disaffected sunnis. it will be difficult for me to imagine that those sunnis will continue to support isis -- >> other sunnis in the region are encouraging them not to. do not support by gotti -- bagh dadi, isil. >> unfortunately, they are still getting money from different individuals. that is where they got their seed money. wells and theyil are doing a lot of kidnapping. they make a lot of money. and these self-supporting terrorist groups, this is something we have not had before. >> when you see the president announcing troops, what do you think? >> the president himself

said this would not be solved militarily. tost of all, let's go back -- isis invited us into this fight by cutting off the heads of american journalists. they were provoking us. why would they do that? i think it is because they do not have any allies. they are alone in the region. everybody hates them. everybody fears them. if you make america your enemy, you have a lot more friends. i think that was their strategy. obama's strategy is to try to enlist as many of those sunni nations around the region in the fight. put their names on the line so that isis cannot recruit from that. it is going to be a contest because we bear responsibility for this. in iraq, we cracked the egg and now we are eating the omelette. >> as: powell said, if you break it, you own it. >> i think if you break it, you

eat it is probably -- >> thank you so much. "thirteen days in september." lawrence wright, pulitzer-prize winning offer -- author. ♪

>> malcolm gladwell has inspired , inflamed, and perplexed the most critical of readers. joining