>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> roger cohen is a columnist for the new york times. his new book is called the girl from human street.

it explores the nature of modern jewish identity. i am pleased to have him at this table. just thinking about this, before you made the commitment to do it, what goes through your mind? is it you have to commit yourself to do it, because you know it is going to be easy? >> there was the imperative because there were mysteries in my family i wanted to explore. on the other hand, doing something so personal is always very difficult. my editor, john siegel if yet not pushed me, i might have shied away from it. i was going to write a book about iran. he said, that is a little depressing. why not write about suicide, loss displacement. it is a story of love. >> it moves from lithuania? to britain. to israel. than the united states. >> the family has been on the

move for war generations -- four generations. in the u.s., we think of immigration in positive terms, but it is lost. you are leaving something behind. my mother is the girl from human street. she was plucked out in the 1950's from this tightknit jewish community in south africa plunked down in postwar london with my father, a physician. and she fell apart. >> do you say, i am an american? when they say where you are from. >> i grew up in south africa and britain. it is strange. i spent much of my of ringing in britain. i had a wonderful education or -- there.

a bit like my mother, something did not quite gel. i feel the united dates and south africa are more intimately tied at this point to my identity than britain. i think it has something to do with the difficulty for a jewish family in britain. philip roth has an observation that when jews are alluded to in britain, voices always drop. i remember my mother pointing to another family and say, that family is jewish. i said, why are you whispered? we were cohens. we didn't hide who we were. but coming to new york, you can leave as a -- live as a jew. the bargain seems to be, you are discrete.

jews are very successful. in britain today. >> how much anti-semitism is there in europe? >> i was a correspondent in germany from 1998 2001. if anybody had sent to me that you would have people in the streets of germany saying open vote jews are pigs, i would say that is never going to happen in germany. we have had jews shot at a museum in brussels. four killed at a kosher supermarket in france. it is not an easy situation. my book is partly about the longing. where do you belong? after love belonging is a top human instinct. >> a search for identity. >> absolutely.

you have an alienated muslim community in europe. an increasingly fearful jewish community. >> what about president not -- netanyahu's invitation to come to paris? >> what he said in paris -- well, i think netanyahu has a tendency to metal a little, both in u.s. and french politics. he is on the campaign trail. there is an election in israel. i think it was a genuine invitation. there is a steady exodus from france. i certainly hope that conditions do not reach such a point that jews en masse start leaving

france. i think jewish identity is -- in diaspora is part of the jewish identity. i think the bright star is the possibility. the black sun is displacement. my mother collapsed when i was nearly three-year-old. she had postpartum depression after my younger sister was born. she disappeared from my life. i cannot prove, scientifically that her collapse was due to having lost her roots, lost her anchor. being taken away and put down somewhere unfamiliar. and later in her life, she suffered from manic depression. she was bipolar. she always craved south africa. she always wanted to return. when i found a box in the attic of my parents' farm in wales, a

place my mother hated because it is rainy and windy. the opposite of what you want to. her two suicide notes, and my father's precise annotations. >> your father discovered her after suicide attempts. >> are accurately, she survived. >> you read them? >> i read them and thought about them endlessly. that is part of why i had to write the book. i thought i could tell an intimate story of one person's breakdown and other story of jewish migration during the 20th century. i think this is a very human condition. we are on the move. a lot of people are uncertain where they belong, what their true home is. how do they build community? >> has the book helps you reconcile her experience?

>> it has, charlie. i feel, at this point, i did everything i could to discover what happened to my mother. i know something i never knew because it was never talk about. on the eve of my third birthday she was in a psychiatric institution having electroshock treatment. this is what sylvia plath had in the 1950's. i can see my mother, know what happened. at the time, i was too young. so i feel i know where i came from. because when i grew up i was sitting in westminster abbey most mornings and i had no idea that my grandmother came from a lithuanian shtetl. knowing what happened to my mother has given me acceptance. >> how do they explain the

absences to you? >> they did not. there was silence. there was silence in the family just as there was silence about the lithuanian past. i do not think that was that unusual. >> when you sat down to write the book, between that moment and to do the research and today what is the most powerful thing you have learned that may make you at ease from knowledge? >> i think the most powerful single thing was finding through the freedom of information act my mother's medical records from the 1950's. there were extraordinary discoveries like my great uncle had been a rabbi. during world war i, he was the chaplain to jewish soldiers.

he was going around the battlefields of europe giving last rites to jewish soldiers. i found his diaries. he writes, has the house of israel done enough to demonstrate loyalty to crown and empire? again, do we really belong? i guess the book has strengthened my identification with israel, with the jewish homeland, because i feel that my family's experience demonstrates without question that jews need a homeland. jews need a homeland that is not built on the statelessness of other people. which is why i am a zionist that believes in a two-state outcome. >> is that slipping away? >> i hope not irrevocably.

israel cannot remain a democratic state unless two states emerge there. >> there will be a palestinian majority. >> and arab majority. sooner or later, an israeli leader will find himself face to face with palestinian leader and the two of them will have the stature to recognize that the past is gone. we will never agree on narratives. on what happened in 1948. what matters is the future, and we want to build something better. i was reviewing larry wright's book on camp david. leaders can rise above the immediate state of affairs. >> president carter has talked about it.

it was when he went to see at the end that all was lost. mainly because of human reasons. >> that is the thing. the future. big speeches invoking the olive grows does not put food on the table. they went into those talks with one bottom line. they were never going to give up sinai. they gave up the settlements of sinai. >> and it did not destroy israel. >> it did not. there has not been a war between israel and egypt. >> you dedicate it to your father and the memory of your mother. what did your father contribute to the story? >> he kept that box in the attic. he knows i am a writer.

i do not think he kept all that believing that i would never see it. he encouraged me to write the book. he wrote a wonderful letter to me that i quote in the book. at the end of my mother's life about her spirit. how he, in his frailty, had done his best to preserve her. he had another relationship. it was his survival mechanism. but you know what? i tried to put myself in his shoes, going through the mental anguish of my mother and how he tried to survive. the marriage lasted 29 years. i did not come away thinking i could pass any kind of judgment. like anyone, both my parents made mistakes. maybe there could have been a better outcome. but i dedicate it to my father because i know his love for me.

>> but you do not grow up knowing the extent of his lithuanian origins? >> i knew nothing of it. we were in a neutral zone. we were:'s -- cohens. we did not have a christmas tree. but i think people need an identity. >> do they need memory? >> they do. memory is fundamental. without memory, we do not know who we are. memory is volatile. every war i have covered is without memory. it is about who came first, who built the synagogue. we were here before you. in bosnia, it was about whether the ottoman turks had done to the serbs. we need memory, but we need historical research. >> you quote from lewis carroll

through the looking glass, it is a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. >> yeah. because, of course, memory is intimately tied to the future. >> in some ways, it is a guide to the future. and then, set your flag at half mast. memory at half mast today and forever. and alan paton -- when people go to johannesburg, they do not come back. >> south africa was deep in my parents. it gets back to the issue of belonging. my father hated apartheid, which is why they left. but part of them never came back from johannesburg. certainly part of my mother. >> what left? >> she was part of something. she was part of a tightknit jewish world in south africa,

where she felt comfortable, at ease. one of the reasons i am drawn to south africa is, when i close my eyes and think of my mother it is on a beach, laughing. one of her floppy sun hats. when i see her in england, i do not know how much you have encountered -- manic depression is a devastating state. in certain moods, you are endlessly active, making plans. then it is followed by complete inertia. the manic phase, you do something crazy like buy a ticket to new york or leave possessions. security came up and said, what is this? she said, i am a magistrate. they locked her up for a while. you are out of control when you are manic. when you are in a depressed phase, you have a lot of guilt

about what you have done in the manic phase, which is why i feel so strongly. my mother was treated basically with drugs. she did not have much psychotherapy. i think you need both. and i think the big argument is whether these conditions are -- you have a certain genetic tendency. i think it was accommodation with my mother. >> you said some interesting things about our heritage. you said, my jewishness does not believe in the notion there is a biblical right to real estate. >> there isn't, i think. there are plenty of people in israel -- i make a clear distinction between the zionism i believe with and messianic zionism, which believes that all the holy land was deeded to the jews.

why is it our land? because it is. that is the answer. the fact is, there are millions of palestinians who live there. we as jews no more than any other what it is like to be a stranger in a strange land. and dominion over on other people is corrosive. the sooner we can get to two states, the better it will be for both peoples. >> the good news is, you discover your family. >> and i have already had many messages and letters. again, i think there is a message of love, a lot of pain, too.

a lot of sadness. it is a book that involves -- my cousin was also bipolar. it has reappeared in every generation. she did commit suicide. so there is sadness in the book but for me, it has been a journey towards knowledge and acceptance and greater peace. >> turning from that to political life, you said recently the rulebook has been torn up. >> bad times, charlie. last year was terrible. i wrote a column called the great unraveling. we had not had the annexation of part of the european state since 1945. that is what president putin did in ukraine. we have a severe depression in europe. some paths are emerging. and that is combined with large

alienated muslim communities, fearful jews. terrible hedonist ideology that keeps metastasizing that calls itself islamic state. it is 35 years since when iran went to war against rushdie. and now we are seeing the harshest expressions of this ideology of hatred. and in the united states, i felt for a long time that president obama was not being strong enough in syria. when there was all the talk of singles or doubles, we do not have a strategy for isis when he was in asia, i did not feel the commitment to the defense of japan was clear. >> today you do? >> i feel the president as a --

has had a good run recently with cuba. i believe he is serious about trying to do a deal with iran which i think would be a good thing, if it is a deal that make sure that -- >> saudi arabia does not think so. >> nevertheless, the saudi's are going to have to get used to the fact that the iranian nuclear program cannot be dismantled. the best and you can do is lock it in a corner, reduce the number of centrifuges, make sure it is only for a civilian program. >> if they believe that the iranians have a nuclear capability, proximate or back, how long you think it will take them? >> just a few billion bucks. it is not a problem.

i do not think iran is going to go nuclear. >> out of their own choice? >> out of their own choice because we're going to force them not to. >> how are we going to do that? >> if there is an agreement that strictly limits the amount of enrichment, they cannot make a bomb. if they do not accept that agreement, if we have solid evidence, which we do not have at the moment i do not think any u.s. president can accept an armed iran. i think the iranians are prudent and clever enough not to take that final step. they will see it is in their interest ultimately, to try to make a deal. the big gamble for the leader of iran is that, when iran comes close to the world this theocracy will become weaker. most iran is very pro-western.

a bit like president putin who makes that calculus that antagonism to the west gets him closer to the west. the situation in russia is lousy for many people. >> if he wants to shore up political support the more antagonistic he is, the better? >> i think that is the decision he made. that is why there has been a 180-degree turn in moscow. we thought, when he said the breakup of the soviet union was the greatest strategic strategy of the 20th century, we thought it was half a joke. but he wants to rebuild. got the soviet union, but he wants to rebuild. >> he wants to rebuild the spirit of influence. >> dominated by moscow and ukraine. is not prepared to make a trade agreement.

i'm not sure the european union is ready for new members right now. things are difficult. >> is the idea of ukraine getting to nato a dead issue? >> i think it is in a band's for a long time. >> you say they are widely seen as more compelling leaders than obama. they do not have the power he has, but they have an aura of global power. >> i think there is a vacuum. much more of a vacuum than any other time in my life. without u.s. guarantees unless our treaties really mean something, what if president putin starts having talks with the baltics? we need to be firm. syria has been a disaster.

he could be your long time discussing syria. but in action -- inaction is a decision. the president's decision in syria was inaction. he should not have done that, in my view. and here we are. >> even though some would argue about the good that came out of it. >> we paid a huge price. the rehabilitation of assad, the strengthening of putin the loss of credibility of the united states. that is a huge price to pay. it came at an unacceptable price. >> they were all coming together in saudi arabia after the death

of king abdullah.\ these audis worry more about iran than anyone else, don't they? >> assad was and he is depressed about the prospect of a two- state peace, but they have iran much more on their minds in a way that israel. i think that is true. the saudi's talk a good line. but in the end, i think they depend heavily on their lines -- alliance with the united states. they are trying to maneuver as best they can -- what they are worried about is, if there were a breakthrough with iran and with the changing politics of

oil, that the united states will not feel as compelled to be as close to the saudis as before. i think they are maneuvering to try to ensure that, for all their criticism of the u.s., their alliance remains solid. we do not see the kind of reworking of american alliances in the middle east that would come from an iran deal. >> up until last summer, there was a seemingly pragmatic school in the political middle. former generals and politicians who claim it is impossible to resolve the conflicts at this time. but think about conflict management. i think the gaza war taught israelis what conflict management looks like. it may be a useful lesson. >> definitely. that is a fundamental point. >> is that a minority voice? or a voice that reflect leadership and the people? >> there is a widespread sense

that the last gaza war survey purpose. -- served a purpose. 2300 people basically died for nothing. there is an awareness -- you say status quo and imagine something peaceful. but the status quo in israel is a status quo of conflict. there are going to be these is potions. -- explosions. there is a shelf life for any leader. then has been in and out of power for nine years. and many are dissatisfied. but israelis want to be sure that whoever leads the country in a crisis, the leader will be strong. what isaac herzog has to do if he is going to win power is

reassure israelis he is capable of that. but -- >> that is what gives operative being was able to do. -- yitzak rabin was able to do. >> they are serious about a two-state peace. they see things cannot remain democratic if they had in the current direction. i have not had the impression that any real commitment, i'm talking about what netanyahu says to his wife, the way he talks about two states, i would be more inclined to think he talks of, i managed kick the can down the road a novel -- another couple of years. i never thought he was serious about it. >> the book is the girl from human street. roger cohen, thank you. >> back in a moment.

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>> four years have passed since the arab spring.

western governments took an enabling role in yemen. yesterday, a hotel attack in tripoli left eight people dead as civil war continues. in yemen the rebels have taken control of the presidential palace. al qaeda is strengthening its saw -- stronghold in the south. joining me is robert worth, a contributor to new york times. gregory johnsen is a writer at large and the author of the last refuge. in new york, matthew waxman, a fellow with the council of foreign relations and a professor at columbia. what we know about what happened in libya? >> a group claiming to be the libyan branch of isis carried out this attack at the corinthian hotel. it is really unclear who this group is.

but the credibility of the claim seems to be high. they announced it as the attack was beginning. killed a number of people. it raises questions about how t he sway of this group is. it does not matter if it was essentially planned from isis headquarters in syria or if they are affiliates in libya. the point is that this group has -- it's idea has tremendous resonance across the region. you have various jihad e factions aligning themselves voluntarily with isis. >> where else do you see it happening? >> the sinai peninsula. you have a group that claims to act on behalf of crisis in yemen. even from the eastern edge of the islamic world, there are groups pledging allegiance to isis. >> the economist wrote on

general intent western powers which assisted in gaddafi's downfall have been conspicuous in their absence. they have watched from the sidelines as things have gone from promising to perturbing too bad to worse. president obama washed his hands of libya after chris stevens was killed in 2012. do you agree with that? >> i think there is some truth to that. the powers that intervened in libya and assisted with the overthrow of gaddafi has certainly not brought the same sense of urgency that they did to that intervention to putting libya back together. libya has broken in at least two major camps competing for legitimacy as the proper government. that internal split has created

a vacuum where violent extremist groups, groups proclaiming to be a local branch of isis, are able to operate pretty freely. >> other than local militia and local groups, have other powers of the nationstates try to come in and take advantage? >> i would say less come in and take advantage, but a number of regional powers have chosen sides. they are worried about spillover effects. when you have in libya essentially a civil war between an elected government that has now had to flee the capital. you have another entity claiming to be the proper government aligned mostly with islamist

fashions -- factions and other powers in the region. they are worried about how that balance of power is going to play out internally. >> what is the u.n. doing? >> the u.n. is trying to propose and coal debate a political process. just this week in geneva, there was a un-sponsored eating, trying to bring together warring factions in a reconciliation process. there are a couple of problems, including the fact that not all of the powers on the ground were represented or willing to participate in the process. >> it seems to me that what you have here is isis being able to extend its authority or connection to places where it does not have to send to soldiers and where it still has influence from people on the

ground. >> absolutely. the u.s. is often criticized for its absence in these places. in some cases, that may be true. but also, the u.s. structurally has a problem. in yemen, the u.s. is joined at the hip with saudi arabia. it was born out of justified resentment against saudi policies. unless the u.s. can create daylight between itself and saudi arabia, it is very difficult for us to do the kind of diplomacy that would be required to rebuild the state and create a structure that would allow us in a more effective way to fight jihadists. >> david iglesias wrote today about yemen what happened in yemen is not very different from the stories of the arab nation shaken by the revolution.

armies that had seen strong authoritarian rulers crumbled. unitary invention has not checked disintegration. the conclusion is so obvious we sometimes overlook it. history is being written by the arabs, not outsiders. foreign assistance can help strong, probably based governments. but not radel, polarized ones. is this true of yemen? >> in yemen, the u.s. has one interest. and that is al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. a group based in yemen. arab spring when the interrupted in 2011, they looked at what was happening in egypt and syria and wanted to avoid the sort of collapse in yemen it was seeing in other places. try to broker a deal. the president had been in power for 33 years. a deal that would see him step down and there would be a transition.

for what the u.s. did is abdicate authority to saudi arabia. the kingdom of saudi arabia had a need for democratic transition in yemen. what we have seen is that kicking the can down the road three years has not really worked. now, the government in yemen has collapsed. the president has resigned. the prime minister has resigned. and a shia group has moved in and they are the natural enemy of al qaeda. what we are likely to see happen is that al qaeda in the arabian peninsula will get stronger. but the u.s. wanted to do is have a good ally on the ground. it is just not in a position to do that. >> president obama said in august, you look at a country like yemen, that has ethnic divisions, we have a committed partner in the president in -- and his government. no longer. >> he is gone.

in its place -- it is difficult to say. it will be very difficult to talk to them, because their trademark slogan is death to america, death to israel. they are at war with al qaeda. they seem to be much more effective and committed in fighting al qaeda than the president or his predecessor who tended to think of al qaeda as an investment, a way to attract american weapons and training, which ultimately fueled greater radicalism. ideally, we would find a way to take advantage of the place that they are actively fighting al qaeda. that is difficult to do because they are allied with iran and have a deep resentment of american power in the region. when you have these entrenched divisions in the region, it is really difficult for americans to get involved in a positive way.

i think it is particularly difficult because we do not have open eyes in the region. we have scaled back almost all of the embassies in the middle east. we have less ability to see what is going on there. it makes us dependent in many countries for information and basic intelligence on people who have a sectarian stake. >> what are our options? >> at this point, one of the things we want to do is prevent a real collapse of the country. in yemen, south yemen, which used to be a separate country under the british they are now in danger of breaking off. in the past, you had a long-term secessionist movement in south yemen. a lot of the leading figures of that movement would threaten secession as leverage. what they wanted was to be treated better.

to see you, be integrated into the country. it looks as if those threats may be much more real threats. the saudis are so anxious about who the influence in yemen -- and we do not know this -- but they may be willing to support a breakaway of some part of south yemen. that is dangerous because it would further erode any kind of authority across the country and allow al qaeda to flourish. >> just to add to robert's point, the u.s. finds itself in a very interesting position in that it is the enemy of almost every group there. much like in syria, where the u.s. sides with rebels and is opposed to president assad, the u.s. is also opposed to al qaeda. the only ally they had was the president, who happened to be the weakest layer. and he is essentially gone from the team. what robert is talking about, what we are seeing in yemen, is

a slow disintegration of a country in which different regions are slowly drifting out of orbit. it is going to be basically a land grab for whatever group has the most guys with guns. and they are going to be able to basically hold as much land as they can. as much as they can claim. that is a difficult -- dangerous situation. when you have a group like al qaeda that wants to establish training camps and take territory. when they have territory, they can govern and also attract fighters which as we have seen they can send back to europe or the united states. >> be on the obvious -- beyond the obvious schism between shiite and sunni, can these groups cooperate in the short-term? >> i think we are going to see

for some time to come, these kinds of schisms tearing apart a number of states in the region. i think there was the hope that we were seeing the beginning of a democratic transition. a democratic transition that was spreading across the region. what we are seeing in some parts , seeing in libya, syria yemen, is that once a structure that had held things together, even tenuously but nevertheless held things together, once that was removed, there is not enough of a basic infrastructure of the state to govern effectively. and when that happens, it is natural that people are going to look to other kinds of allegiances.

whether it is sectarian tribal or others, to try to protect themselves. >> when you look at the arab spring, what is the most positive example of what it accomplished? >> in tunisia, you see some positive movements. where it started. elsewhere, where there was initially great promise, we have now seen a step back or a step sideways. in egypt, democratic transition has given rise to a counterrevolutionary return to military rule, arguably more repressive than under mubarak. in tripoli, you have replaced a brutal dictator with civil war. syria, obviously, has descended into terrible civil war that has taken 200,000 or so lives. very difficult to find cause for

optimism as you look around the region. tunisia is not a large country but i think the potential of tunisia is that a lot of eyes will be trained on it. nothing is guaranteed there either, but i was there a couple of months ago, and what you see is everybody wanting -- the one country in the region where everybody wants to be in the political center. the islamist parties trying to show up women without jobs. everybody trying to find some common ground. if that is able to succeed, and there are indications that it will, i think that will have an influence. >> how do you measure the united states' support with airstrikes to the iraqi government in iraq to stop the forward movement of isis? >> the current strategy of

relying on airstrikes and trying to support local forces on both training of iraqi military forces and supporting syrian rebels, i think that can help stop the expansion of isis. but it is unlikely to root out. >> when we are talking about airstrikes, the u.s. has great technology. whether we are talking about airstrikes in iraq or drone strikes in yemen. but the technologies are dependent upon human intelligence on the ground. what we have seen in iraq and yemen is that, as the u.s. loses allies or pulls troops, the u.s. no longer has dependable people on the ground. it does not matter if a u.s. drone can hit a pickup driving down the road. if the wrong people are in the

pickup or the u.s. does not know who is in the pickup, you end up with mistaken drone strikes that instead of pushing back al qaeda or rooting out isis in iraq or syria, it can actually exacerbate the problem. that is something we have seen in the past few years. the u.s. human intelligence is really our achilles heel in the middle east. >> is there taking place some kind of reappraisal of what america has to do and how they coordinate with the saudi's? >> i think there was a real sense that the saudis were angry. over the past several years they wanted the u.s. to take out assad and we didn't. they feel that we, with the negotiations of the iranian nuclear policy, we were handing over the policy to iran. i think there is probably a desire to renew relationships

now that you have a new king. to make the dialogue work better than it had in the past. i think also, probably, there is a desire to see if the saudis can be more flexible when dealing with the problem like yemen, where you have a religious ideological opposition by the saudis to the lucy's and i would urge the saudi's to think prom adequate. the leader of the movement has actually in speeches said we would like to work with everyone else. we try to come up with a solution. i do not know how genuine that is, but i would imagine that the americans, if they can do anything right now, would like to do their best to work with the saudis to be as flexible as possible.

>> not on the same scale, the outcome in libya is like the outcome in iraq. >> i think the obama administration has put forward a vision of its policy in the region that is based on trying to influence, not dictate events , but try to influence events. go in with a small footprint rather than a large footprint. boots on the ground. also, be driven by certain humanitarian imperatives. imperatives that i believe him very strongly, with regard to the exercise of american power. when we can do some good. it often requires a good deal of follow-up, though. one of the things we see in a lot of these cases is that trying to put a state back together, to build basic institutions of a state, put aside democracy. just basic institutions of a

state. it is often a long-term project. >> a lot of those institutions were not there. >> kernel gaddafi by deliberately trying to ensure institutions that could operate without him and not exist. you remove him and the state is going to collapse. >> i was in cairo during the revolution and visited yemen shortly after the president step down. the one thing that struck me was there was this brief moment of hope in which people's expectations were almost artificially inflated to the point where, if we get rid of gaddafi or mubarak, our countries will go back to the places that our grandparents used to tell us about. where things worked, we would see a world in which we had hope. what we have seen happen over the past four years is as those expectations were artificially inflated, they have burst.

in places like yemen and libya, no one knows the rules of the game. they are being rewritten because the people who made the rulebook are gone. the rulebook is thrown out. everybody is scrambling to try to figure out what happens. it is really messy and incredibly dangerous. >> often, people say the u.s. made a mistake in libya or yemen by interfering too much or took a little. given the chaos and libya some people are saying, was a right to have a bombing campaign in the first place? i think it is easy to second-guess this stuff. people have argued that it might have been possible to reach an agreement and have a cease-fire with libya. the turks are trying to do that. the algerians were proposing that. i personally doubt it. omentum was so great. no western leader wanted to play the role of a cold realist and disappoint the revolutionaries.

chris stevens, who was killed in 2012, thought a lot about this. i knew him somewhat, and he wanted to have a light footprint in the country. ultimately, i do not know whether he was wrong or not. but we suffered, perhaps for not having followed up closely enough. chris did not want a large american presence in that country. i think it is very hard to say whether the u.s. could have done better. whether in libya or syria, by intervening sooner. i think it is certainly possible that we could have saved lives in syria if the u.s. and its partners have been more aggressive and more imaginative with diplomacy. but whether the u.s. could have retained a strategic picture on the ground, especially in syria where you have the russians backing assad i doubt we could

have made a big difference. >> thank you. we will revisit this obviously. the spectrum of failed states is troubling washington, because they remember where al qaeda came from. i thank each of you for being here. see you next time. ♪

>> i'm mark halperin. >> i'm john heilemann. with all due respect to marshawn lynch, we're just here to do a cold open. we're just here to do a cold open. bloomberg.com♪ >> happy national courtship day. in our lineup tonight, a charade, a sham, a share. first the great campaign robbery. mitt romney's campaign strategist has been poached by jeb bush, by far the most mega hire of the 2016 campaign so far. it's not just the process of internal intrigue that