>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: tom friedman is here. he is a pulitzer prize-winning author and foreign policy columnist for the new york times. he spoke with president barack obama about the nuclear deal with iran soon after it had been announced. here's how the president defined the agreement with tom. president obama: we are not measuring this deal by whether we are solving every problem that can be traced back to iran, whether we are eliminating all their activities around the

globe. we are measuring this deal and that was the original premise of this conversation. iran could not get a nuclear weapon. that was always the discussion. what i am going to be able to say and we will be able to prove is that this, by a wide margin is the most definitive path by which iran will not get a nuclear weapon and we will be able to achieve that with the full cooperation of the world community and without having to engage in another war in the middle east. charlie: ashton carter announced saudi support. meantime, secretary of state john kerry told congress that the rejection of the accord would give tehran a green light to accelerate their program. secretary kerry: this will be rigorously scrutinized and wholly peaceful, or no deal at all. that is the choice.

charlie: i am pleased to have tom friedman back in this table. it is a big deal. tom: it is a big moment in history. 36 years that we have had this hostile relationship. in 1979 i was a reporter on fleet street for upi london and my boss came to me one day and said the number two man in the beruit bureau has been shot by a man robbing a jewelry store. would you like to go to beirut? the iranian revolution was just happening. we were in the middle of it. that is when i stepped into the middle east and i realized thinking about it in the wake of what happened, my entire career has been framed by this u.s.-iranian cold war. charlie: connected to it. you were there with the president the day after he announced the deal. you're sitting with him. give me a sense of how it felt in terms of his sense of what

this moment was about, his conviction that this was the only way to go, and his sense of what it meant for him personally. tom: two words stand out to me. this was the morning of. one you just used, conviction. this was not pretend. this is a president who, agree with him or disagree with him, really believes he has shut off the pathway for iran to break out with a nuclear weapon for the next 15 years. number one. number two, he has an extremely tight logic around which he makes that argument. and number three, something he does not say, but i really believe he believes. obama is someone who believes in hunting big game, that is what you are here for. and if you can in a prudent way, in a way that serves the

national interest, and leaves us protection to reverse things if they go bad, if you could take a giant battleship like the u.s. iran relationship and begin to turn it in another direction that is a really important thing. it is a high risk thing. i really believe that he feels he came there to hunt big game. this is one of the biggest game he was out to hunt. charlie: two things about that. the other big game was obamacare and getting osama bin laden. this deal did not start yesterday. they began to build the sanctions, hoping it would deliver what happened last week. tom: i tend to look at it before obama, going back to the bush administration. the first illicit iranian programs were revealed under president george w. bush and when he took power, iran had several hundred centrifuges.

the bush administration, condi rice in particular, gets credit for putting the p5 together. this contact group to negotiate with iran. where the first bush administration failed, they launched and lost the iraq war. when you launch and lose the iraq war, you completely open the wider arab world to iranian influence because we broke the dam of sunni power in saddam hussein and did not replace it. at the same time, you discredited the military option. were i think bush failed is it is an important predicate, this is important. internally they could never agree to use a military option to stop what the iranians were doing or the diplomatic option. cheney was a hardliner. even though they constructed the p5 to do negotiations, they

could never quite get their act together to frame the negotiations. obama comes in and i think he says two things. one is, even though he says all options are on the table, he does not believe that. and no one believed anymore that force was an option because there was such war fatigue in the country. people did not want to go to war over this. obama decides to construct a real diplomatic choice. i will get the sanctions ratcheted up so the pain on iran is high and i will put a carrot on the table that you can and this was very controversial and will remain so, you can keep a constrained nuclear infrastructure if you eliminate your ability to make a weapon. charlie: he is a guy who believes in negotiation, believes in dialogue. whether it is the law professor

background or whatever it is. the bush people would not agree they lost the iraq war because they believe after the surge they were able to do with they did. number three, the question of whether he had given up the military option, i suspect if someone walked into his office and said they are a month away from having a nuclear weapon, he would do something about that. he would not have iran getting a nuclear weapon on his watch. tom: the iranians were very smart about that, so they always stayed below that threshold. charlie: he does have that conviction. is he right? tom: i hate to resort to that cliché. here is what i feel. i feel like there is a party we have not heard from very much at all in this and that is the iranian people. ultimately, i think they are going to be the most important determinant of this. why do i say that? let's go back to a conversation

we had a couple of years ago when rahani was elected president. the ayatollah allowed five men to run for president. there was mr. black, and mr. black. the overwhelming number of iranians voted for mr. slightly light black. why? they are so tired of being isolated from the world. one of the things you learn is they have had enough islam to know they want less of it and they have had enough democracy to know they want more. charlie: they showed that when they went in to the streets. they thought the previous election had been taken away from them. tom: that is, the supreme leader had to let rahani be elected. he had to play this deal out. charlie: they knew what they were doing when they selected the foreign minister. tom: no question.

also, look at what the supreme leader has done since that crackdown in the 2009 revolution. they have eased up a lot internally. these guys are survivors. and so all i am saying is that people who will shape iran's behavior more than anything is that wider public opinion. charlie: back to the president's conviction. you seem to argue in your columns that it is the best option and can be an effective option if properly implemented and augmented. tom: i think that is really important. one of the things that has concerned me from the beginning, you can do a simple arms-control deal with someone you don't trust. you can do a complicated deal with someone you do trust. we have that with south korea and japan. but a complicated arms-control treaty with someone you do not

trust is really complicated. the opportunities for mess ups sensors not working, someone not showing up, for cheating, it puts a huge, especially when you are dealing with multiple sites and entire sales chains. the bad news is that it is comprehensive. the complexity of overseeing something this comprehensive i think we are going to hear a lot more about that challenge. charlie: the president is making this argument. there are no better alternatives. this may not be a perfect deal as he would like. he did not get everything he wanted because it was a negotiation. but if you look at the alternatives, it leaves much to be desired. tom: i have written -- in the run-up to this deal i am concerned we never got up from the table and walked out.

charlie: we do not need this deal. tom: they need it more than we do, which i ultimately believe they did. the issues, the question of observing and getting access to suspicious sites not covered in the deal. i would have liked to see half that at the maximum. 24 days is a long time to get access to a suspicious site. there are things i wish we would have bargained harder on. i would have liked to see is us hold the line on. the one where they are most vulnerable -- once you decide that iran will keep its basic infrastructure, which was a huge concession which again, they believed they had to do it because iran had built all this and they had the know-how and the could rebuild it again. charlie: they were not going to tear everything down. tom: once you took the military option off the table you had no leverage.

the biggest vulnerability -- there are two -- one is the question of an assist to suspicious sites that are not covered by the deal, and the other -- and i understand why it is not part of the negotiations but where the iranians could give a huge boost to the president -- is releasing the four americans. that would get people's attention. charlie: why did they hold on in the first place? tom: it is the revolutionary guard holding them to screw up the deal. the question now, is the supreme leader going to say enough is enough? one of the things that really struck me -- i have been to iran and saudi arabia in a short time back in the 1990's. what strikes you most about iran is iran has real politics. you know what the biggest issue being debated is?

someone had it up a resolution in the iranian parliament and it was being debated. why are we giving all this money to the palestinians? i did a double take. that is a real story. these are persians. why are we giving this money to arabs is the undertone of this. what you are going to see is more real politics emerge rate , of that i am certain. i would predict no linear path but on the question of no option, i have listened closely to the critics because i consider myself not a soft liner. iran having a potential nuclear weapon is a huge blow to the nuclear nonproliferation regime and that affects us very much in america. charlie: it makes the middle east even more of a powder keg. tom: exactly. in a region that is already a powder keg. i just do not hear anything coming from the critics that persuades me that will be better

than this. i understand prime minister netanyahu's reluctance, but what do i hear him saying? more sanctions would lead to a better deal. in other words, their iranians are perfectly logical. if you increase the pressure they will increase the concessions. tuesday and thursday he says they are wild and crazy. if you give them a bomb they will drop it on the jews the next day. are they rational or irrational? i do not take israel's concerns lightly. i covered a lot of iran's handiwork firsthand. i covered the bombing of the u.s. embassy. i covered the bombing of the u.s. marines in beirut. i was in israel when hezbollah emerged. hezbollah has been a terrible organization first and foremost for lebanese shiites and for lebanon in general. i am stunned the degree to which

hezbollah has become the catspaw of iran and not a lebanese organization promoting the interests of lebanese shiites. i get all the concerns, but show me a credible pathway that will deliver more security to more people in more places. charlie: the president argues this thing ought to be looked at only in the confines do we stop them from getting a bomb. that has to be a high priority. we ought to deal with this and perhaps we can embed this deal in terms of some new effort along that line, but if they did have the bomb and they were doing all these things, there would be much more of a terrible weapon for them to have in their own nefarious activities. tom: i share that view. you have to stay focused, eyes on the prize.

let's lock away a bomb a year away from assembly for the next 15 years. let's also remember something else. we have basically -- because we have been so isolated from iran -- our view of the middle east for 36 years has been deeply colored by relationships with israel and saudi arabia and the arab gulf states and they have their own interests. and turkey as well. the idea that iran is all black and they are all white as the driven snow is simply a fantasy. 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from saudi arabia. none of them were from iran. iran was the only country that had spontaneous demonstrations in support of america after that. charlie: and people argue that what drives isis is wahabism. tom: isis is just one notch -- i will tell you a story. last june, i was a commencement speaker.

i was talking to iraqi officials. they said it was very interesting. the people said isis went around to doors and on the homes of christians, they put an arabic symbol for nazarenans. we discovered it is an archaic term for shiites that comes from saudi arabia. ok? isis, my view is the guidance system was straight out of saudi wahhabi-ism. the iranians pushed maliki to push and crackdown on the sunni arabs of iraq to the point where they were ready to welcome in isis. iran's behavior in iraq --

they're both arsonists and firefighters. they come and say we will help you put out the fire. you guys lit the fire. the saudis are also arsonists and firefighters there. our interests in the middle east are the following. we are there as disorder, let's try to build order. egypt, where there as order, let's try to make it a little more decent. where there is decent order, jordan, uae, kurdistan, try to make it more consensual and where there is consensual order, tunisia, lebanon, protect it like a rare flower. we got to go right down that checklist, it seems to me but do not buy into anybody's schtick.

there's a deep shia-arab-persian-sunni thing going on here. you and i are not part of the story. i have said before -- it is so deep. iran is like your big brother walks out the door 36 years ago and and slams the door. charlie takes the stereo. charlotte takes his favorite pen. and we have a sole relationship with dad in washington. 36 years later, big brother is back. i want my pen, i want my stereo, i want my bicycle, that is what is going on, so the arabs are freaking out because there has never been an iranian ambassador in washington. they have had a sole monopoly based on dialogue here. that is going to break down and that is a good thing because ultimately, what have we

learned? we have learned two things about the middle east. one is, we don't know what we are doing. we tried in afghanistan and iraq and libya. charlie: is there a reason to stop trying? tom: no, but there is a reason to act with humility and not think you can remake all of this. number one. there is a reason to understand that if you think one side is all black and the other side is all white, you have been there too long. you need to come home. you need to check out, maybe spend some time in thailand because it is a really complicated story. ♪

charlie: one idea is if this deal does not work, the sanctions will fall away. they will not be able to if the u.s. congress says no and the president's veto is overridden that there will be no chance to go back to sanctions because everybody used the sanctions to get them to the table. they came to the table and made a deal. we suffered from it because the economic consequences -- we bought into the argument that the deal was possible if we kept to --

tom: we have fracking, we have no problem with oil, but there are a bunch of countries indonesia, malaysia, india japan who need access and would benefit from access to iran's natural resources. so they are actually sacrificing. the idea that they will continue to sacrifice after we do a deal but then the congress decides to pull the plug at the behest of the prime minister of israel. how many of them will keep signing on to that? for how long? that is a real challenge. i would like to look at an alternative. this is an imperfect deal, but i do not see one. the fair-minded people who do not come at this hating obama or looking at it through politics i do not see a lot of fair-minded people showing me a pathway that can get us from here to there. could they have bargained better? could john kerry have been more ferocious?

that is open for debate, but we are where we are. charlie: john kerry played a crucial role. tom: that is the strength of john kerry. he is not someone who gets up from the table. i will keep beating at you and he deserves a lot of credit. charlie: the argument is we will delay it for 10 to 12 years but they will get a nuclear weapon after 10 or 12 years. yes, we will restrain it now but they continue to do research, and in the middle east 10 or 15 years is not a long time. once they get a weapon, all hell will break loose and the 21st century is changed. tom: and i say -- a country of 85 million people that has been a great civilization, that educates its men and women, that believes in science and technology, if it wants to get a

bomb, it will get a bomb and they have proven this under the most severe sanctions possible. the idea that we can somehow permanently prevent them from getting the nuclear fuel cycle with sanctions or without is an illusion. they demonstrated they could do it. now, what critics say and there is legitimacy to this but we are blessing it going forward. i think that is a matter of concern and dispute. they are going to get this capability. the question is, will they have the intention and do we signal -- that is why i have argued we need to be signaling through congress much more forcefully authorizing the president -- the right to destroy an iranian nuclear weapon if they develop one. charlie: we hope you are

listening. this president and future presidents to use all means necessary to stop you. tom: and with "all" in caps. they need to know if they get the cycle enriched, iran -- this iranian regime -- acquiring a bomb crosses a red line for us. it will be bad for the world. it would be the end of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. charlie: i do not understand why the prime minister said rather than trying to attack you to say this is a historic disaster, he might not have participated with the united states to say, let's do what we were talking about, so we are there on the inside trying have some influence because of the inevitable likelihood that you prevail, we are on the outside. tom: imagine, instead of getting

himself invited by john boehner to give his third address to congress without informing the white house, he told the president and said this issue is so important that i want to bring the heads of the five major political parties in israel. all of us agree that iran must not get a bomb and the deal we areeading for is disastrous. we would like to meet with you in private, sir, you and your national security team. i would like to meet with the democratic and republican caucuses to share with congress our view. charlie: but not publicly. tom: but not do it publicly on the eve of my election, which raises a lot of suspicion. where did his motive start and his political interests start. there was another way to do this. israel has legitimate concerns. you think of the eight years of ahmadinejad, the holocaust

denial conferences, the awful, vile things this man said and did and supported. you look at the attack in argentina on the israeli diplomatic mission in the jewish community center by hezbollah, clearly agents of iran. israel has legitimate concerns and i do not expect the israelis to ever like any deal that would empower iran. i totally get that. but i think they would be at this stage -- unless they have a credible alternative, and it is not just getting a bunch of congressmen to vote with them for mixed motives because they're are going to do it for political reasons. charlie: do you imagine that the israeli government would act on their own if in fact, congress does not stop this deal? tom: i would imagine that if israel felt that iran had moved from where they are now, three months break out in the interim deal, that was moving toward a bomb and israel detected it.

mark: i would expect the israelis would do anything they could and come to us and encourage us to do it. i think it is something that we would listen to. but let's remember that prime minister netanyahu, some people criticize him and some praise -- criticize him for this and some people praise him for it. he is one of the most cautious israeli leaders. he is not a man who is, he is rhetorically quick to the draw but he has been risk-averse in terms of this kind of activity. charlie: and politically sensitive. tom: also remember, there is a huge debate -- and it will be coming out more in the next few days within the security establishment. i think you will hear more and more voices there. you already here a few of retired mossad people saying this deal is not that bad. let's learn to live with it.

leaf -- the former israeli foreign minister used to say to his cautious -- hawkish critics we are not a disarmed costa rica. israel is a disarmed costa rica. we do have over 200 nuclear weapons of our own. charlie: there is the remark that the palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. tom: there's a point about -- compare saddam's behavior and iran's behavior. three times, saddam hussein -- supposedly rational saddam hussein -- actually shook the dice on his whole regime. took a hail mary out. he launched a war against iran in 1980. charlie: which iran has never for supporting. forgive and him -- which iran has never forgiven him for supporting. tom: he invaded kuwait thinking he would get away with it. and third, he stared george bush down, i will not let you in with

you and inspectors even though i am not hiding a bomb. this is a guy who shook the dice three times. show me where the iranians have ever done anything half that reckless, you know what i mean? these are survivors. i wish there were some way to begin that they would on their own -- look, the jewish people have a deep and long and positive history with persia and it is the relationship between the jewish people now and the persian nation is inorganic. we have a much more organic -- many persian jews with font memories of their times in iran. there is a deep history there. charlie: the argument you have made consistently over the last 10 years -- if you look at the middle east because of the internet, there is within every country a group of people who want to participate in the world, and they are prevented from that often by people who claim to be friends of the united states.

tom: right. going back to what i said earlier, i think everything is going to happen. you're going to see crazy stuff about israelis and iranians communicating on twitter. you will see deals, you will hear about shady backroom deals and really hard line, ugly behavior at the same time. in 10 years, we will see where the balance is. charlie: this is part of the argument as well. this $100 billion that comes into play that clearly the president said that they will use that to support hezbollah. and hezbollah will have a role in syria. iranians will have an influence in yemen and we cannot stop that. and we know that that money in part will go to their efforts to make their behavior even more egregious. tom: why can't we stop it? i point out two things. one is the reason hezbollah is so successful -- they are good

fighters -- it is because the sunni arabs are divided. that has allowed them to play -- actually lebanese christians off of sunni muslims and lebanon. how many opposition groups are there? al nusra, outcomes run -- i'll nusra -- you have hezbollah against everybody else. what has been the historical problem of the sunni arab world? tribalism. the inability to make a fist. iran can spend all the money in the world. it can put $100 billion in two hezbollah, but if the sunni arabs got their act together they could trump that in a second. iran today, in my view, there in -- they are in all these capitals -- they are deeply overextended. just in the way we were, they

are the mirror image of what we were seven or eight years ago. i do not dispute the money but right now with all the money hezbollah has got, hezbollah has never been less popular in lebanon and there has never been more vocal, open criticism by shiites in lebanon since we got involved in this war in syria. charlie: the iranians and others have added to their military. even though they were devastated by the war, they have added since then, and the capacity of missiles are said to be greater. tom: why can't arabs by missiles to? charlie: why don't they? tom: that was one of the points the president made. you have to get your stuff together. why are your sons going off to join isis? how do i deal with your hezbollah problem when there are 2000 saudis that went to join isis? when turkey opens its border and then closes its border to isis.

there are so many games inside of games being played here. the president deeply resents, i am not going to send any more american men and women into this den of vipers. you know on those aircraft, we have identification, friend or foe, it's like you need an apple watch on each one of these guys that broadcasts friend or foe. it is not clear who is friend and who is foe here. charlie: therefore you support the decision he made with respect to syria in 2011? tom: i still debate that. i was on the side of not intervening. i really believe charlie, the middle east only puts a smile on your face when it starts with them. when it starts with us, it ends with us. it is not self-sustaining. charlie: what is the friedman

formula for dealing with isis? tom: it goes back to what i was saying before. we have to look for the islands of decency. jordan, kurdistan, baghdad coalition, be it what it may -- empower them and build on them. if they are ready to fight against isis, i am ready to aid them in any way i can. i will not put american boots on the ground necessarily. we can only build on iraqis, sunnis basically, ready to take down isis. charlie: the fbi director said yesterday that isis is much more of a threat than al qaeda terror was, number one. number two, there was a piece talking about how these guys are thinking about their own future. they are organizing, and they are not like traditional terrorists -- they are doing more in terms of taking territory and trying to organize

that territory, and in fact making allowances for the fact that one or more of them might be hit by a drone. it is a different kind of enemy. tom: it is a smart enemy. charlie: and it's taking territory. tom: why is it taking territory? this is the single most underestimated force in arab politics. governance. why do these guys in basel first let isis and? -- isis in? they basically let them in. maliki, the shiite prime minister of iraq, was so hammering the sunnis, firing their generals, taking money away, that basically they said well these awful guys are less awful than those guys. charlie: that is beginning to change. tom: they understand if they want to keep that, they have to govern it. it always goes back to this question. why is it -- going back to

afghanistan -- we are the ones always saying we just got to train a few thousand more. who trained the taliban and? who trained isis? who trained al qaeda? charlie: the silver bullet is training them to make the fight. tom: training is a byproduct of allegiance to a set of ideas and a set of values. if you've got that, you don't need any training. if you don't have that, all the training in the world will not get you to stand and fight except for your own home. charlie: is time on their side or our side? tom: if you redraw the middle east map, what is the rational way you would do it? what do we do -- first of all you would go back to the only interim peace agreement that has

held all these years and that is the lebanese peace agreement. forged in 1989. it was built on one principle. no victor, no vanquished. the minority gets overrepresented. the christians were 30% of the country, but they got 50% of the seats. that is how the lebanese civil war ends. syria and iraq will only end when the shia and sunni's say to each other, we cannot kill all of you, you cannot kill all of us. syria will become a sunni -dominated country with the alawites getting extra protection as a minority. iraq will become a shia dominated country with the sunnis getting extra minority. 30 years from now, i promise you, hopefully we will still be here at this table. if this ends in the middle east, it will be because rationality

finally weighed in and the iraqis, syrians, shia, and sunnis came to the deal that the tunisians came to early and the lebanese came to earlier. no victor, no vanquished. we have to find a way to share this. the minorities get overrepresented and we march on. charlie: as the president said the iranians get involved in syria -- he said that. you ask him? the russians get involved. and the interesting thing is the president said to you, they russians played a positive role here in the nuclear debate. tom: he went out of his way to say it. charlie: i know. that's my point. tom: there is the potential here for the mother of all grand bargains and this goes back to versailles. it would start with u.s. russia, and ukraine, the eu agreeing that russia will lease crimea for 99 years.

in return, pay rent to ukraine in the form of natural gas. putin does not have to climb down. he gets the least -- and we find a way to get putin out of the ukraine tree, which you would like, and then back into the game tree, where he would be somewhat of a partner in resolving syria and iraq. you do that, you got a chance for a different trajectory in that part of the world. charlie: what a life you have. you get up every morning and look at these things and say, who can i talk to, where can i travel, and who can help me understand? and then you can tell everyone about it. tom: the best job in the world. charlie: tom friedman back in a moment. stay with us. ♪

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♪ charlie: the staff writer for the new york magazine is here. his piece in this week's issue takes a look at the death of the argentinian prosecutor. in january 2015, he accused argentinian president cristina kirchner of covering up iran's role in the deadliest terror attack in the country's history. day later, he was found dead of a gunshot one to the head. -- gunshot wound to the head. it has been called the latin american equivalent of the jfk assassination. i am pleased to have dexter back at this table. welcome. dexter: thank you for inviting me. charlie: take me to the story.

dexter: it is an amazing story. there are so many threads, so many countries involved. it was a bombing of the jewish center in argentina probably carried out by iran and hezbollah. you had this prosecutor who was totally driven and insist by -- obsessed by this case. he was not going to be stopped. he was going to get to the bottom of it. he plugged on the case for years and years and he indicted the leadership of the iranian government. the iranians laughed at him. he went to interpol and got the arrest warrant secured. what happened -- and i think what i went down to look at was, two years ago, the argentine government announced it had made a remarkable deal with the iranians. it was a strange deal, to set up a truth commission to investigate this terrorist

bombing, which everyone more or less assumed the iranians did. he was enraged and investigated the government of argentina. what he found and what he claimed to have found was there was a secret deal that the argentine government wasn't telling anyone about. to more or less forget the terrorist attack. charlie: what is the incentive to forget? dexter: grain, oil. economics, money. he said this was a criminal conspiracy by the president of argentina and its foreign minister to forget this terrorist attack. charlie: probably under pressure from iran, he would argue? >> yes. so on january 15, he was scheduled to appear in front of the committee of the argentine congress to testify about this. 12 hours before, he is found dead in a pool of blood in the bathroom of his apartment with a pistol in his hand.

that is the case. the coroner initially ruled it a suicide. i have to say that nobody really believed it at the time. few people believed it at the time. so the question is, how did he die? that is what i went down there to figure out. charlie: do reasonable people think this could have been suicide? dexter: suicide is -- we never know. he was found in his apartment. the doors were locked. in his own blood with a pistol that was used to kill him. charlie: but friends can testify what is middle state was, and that kind of thing, and if you ever talked about considering suicide. dexter: that's what i did. what i found was exactly that. i talked to his friends, the circle of people around him.

nobody told me that he was suicidal, even depressed. in any way inclined towards any of that. even hours before. he is sending e-mails people hours before he is supposed to appear in congress, saying i cannot wait to get in there. i am really fired up, and then they find him dead in his apartment. there is a lot of very intriguing evidence. charlie: where did he get the gun? dexter: he got the gun -- this is where it gets really weird. there are so many layers to this story. he was terrified the last couple days of his life. he would not leave his apartment. he sent his mother out to get groceries for him. he told people that he had overheard wiretapped conversations that iranian intelligence was coming after him.

he was really nervous. he called an employee in his office and said, do you have a gun? i spoke to that employee. he said, look, i did not want to give it to him. it is this old gun, this old pistol. he persuaded me to bring it over there and give it to him. i said, do you think he was going to kill himself? he said, i was afraid he would use that gun to kill someone else. that happened hours before he was dead. so the question is, there is a gap. he gets limited -- lynn did -- tentlent the pistol and a few hours later he is dead. what happened? charlie: what did you conclude? dexter: i did not answer it directly. i did not get a confession from the assassin. if you read my story from beginning to end, you will see first of all how enormously complex and far-flung this was and how much pressure this guy was under. i think that -- i have to say, i

find it hard to believe that he killed himself. if only because there was absolutely no one, no one who seemed to think he was even remotely inclined towards that. yet on the other hand, there are so many people who wanted him dead. he got death threats all the time. he was humiliating the argentine government, and i should say i think his accusation was probably true. the argentine government was trying to cut a deal with the iranians to forget the terrorist attack. i think he was probably right about that. there was a lot of people in the government who would be deep ly embarrassed by the revelations that he was prepared to deliver. and of course the iranians had a lot to lose as well. on one hand, i could not find anyone who told me -- who knew him well, who thought he was inclined to suicide. on the other hand, i could not -- i found a lot of people who

had a motive to hurt him or shut him up. charlie: we have a weapon and a motive and what else do we need here? did anyone hear anything, did anyone see anything, did anyone notice any cars speeding away? dexter: no. but, what is really strange about the case that he was making -- it was based on a series of wiretapped conversations. it was a little hard to explain, but essentially the steel, the secret deal between argentina and iran was basically being carried out by some freelance off-the-books guys. one of whom, according to him, was an argentine intelligence agent. so when you start looking -- this was one of the stories where god is in the details and when you go really deep into these details, it starts to look at least for me, it looked more and more like suicide was not a

likely cause of death. i should say, a medical examiner -- one hired by his common-law wife, and another 1 -- an american 1 -- you recently went down there concluded that he was murdered. charlie: the relationship to cristina kirchner about all this. at one time, she had a good relationship with him. dexter: yes. she would come to the united nations every year, the general assembly, and announce the iranians. whenever augmenting the job -- the iranian president walked in the room -- charlie: then he started investigating her. >> i think what happened honestly is -- i interviewed the president and she said, look this terrorist attack is 21 years old. we have never been able to solve

it. we have never brought justice to the victims, to the survivors. what am i going to do? wait another 21 years? i think that was her argument. her argument is, look, i was trying to find a way to get some kind of resolution. she admits we had these secret negotiations with the iranians and we went to set up this truth commission. the point was that that was a cover story for much more significant secret agreement that was made under the table. she denies that. charlie: does anyone have evidence of the secret agreement? dexter: quite a bit. in the days before, four days before he was found dead, he turned in a 300 page report to a federal judge in argentina. there is a lot of detail and a lot of compelling evidence. there is no smoking gun that

says, absolutely, president kirchner -- charlie: does anybody have any logical suspect? are you suggesting most people believe in argentina that that it was the iranians did it? -- the iranians who did it? it was friends of the president did it? or -- who else had something to lose? dexter: as you mentioned at the top, i said this in the piece, it has become the jfk assassination. everyone has a different theory. there was a poll that was taken right after he was killed, where i think it was 70% of the argentine people believe the government was involved. charlie: the government was involved? dexter: and that he was murdered. i do not know. he had identified very mysterious person who was working on this case.

a guy named -- in these transcripts, his name is alan. he said that this is an argentine intelligence officer orchestrating the secret deal. charlie: did you talk to alan? >> i could not find him. it's possible that if he was killed, there were certainly people who wanted to shut him up. charlie: where does it stand today? dexter: he is buried in the jewish cemetery in buenos aires. the rest of it i think is frozen. i think the tragedy of this murder, or of the suicide, whichever one it was, is that whatever else happened in the case, he knew this case better than anyone. as somebody told me, he carried the case in his head. what does that mean? it means i think that it is likely to die with him. will we ever get any kind of

resolution to this awful terrorist attack that happened in buenos aires in 1994? charlie: fascinating story. dexter: thank you. charlie: iran, argentina, and the shocking death. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

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