>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight tom friedman of the "new york times" and a look at american foreign policy. >> we can live with a certain kind of iran. now, the israelis also can actually live -- they can live with a strong iran as long as it's not meddling around with hezbollah. for them iran is persia and shiites. they don't want iran to be strong at all. so i was just in saudi arabia and the feeling you get there is the kind of cartoon image i draw is like herein was like a big brother who 34 years ago walked out of the house and slammed the door. you took his bicycle, i took his tennis shoes, he took his bed, okay? 34 years he's gone and we all had an undiluted relationship with our uncle sam and he was never there. last month, knock knock. (laughs) okay? he's back!

and they're just freaking out. i mean, he's back! he wants his bicycle, his bed, his shoes and his own relationship with uncle sam. >> rose: tom friedman for the hour. next. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: 2013 was a big year in foreign and domestic policy. joining me now is tom friedman. he's friend of this program and a pulitzer prize winning

columnist for the "new york times." his book "from beirut to jerusalem" was updated to reflect the change of the region. he travels around the world. his most recently visited saudi arabia united arab emirates, china and singapore. all of those names and bilines will appear in his columns. i'm especially pleased to have him back at this table as we look at where we are, where we're going and where we have been this past year. welcome. i apologize for my voice. off column in today's "new york times" "i don't know whether secretary of state john kerry will succeed in his two big chosen priorities: trying to forge an israeli palestinian peace in a detente with iran that deprives it with a nuclear weapon. but i admire the way he dares to fail. it's the only way to become a consequential secretary of state. and i admire his strategy trying to conduct a diplomat they makes it implausible for israel, the

palestinians and iran to continue avoiding their big existential choices." tell me what the choices are and what do you think kerry is doing and what is his strategy for doing it? >> well, you know really what the headline says, charlie, it really reflects my gut feeling toward him which is it's just great to see a guy break all the rules, go through all the red lights and just say "i know i shouldn't be doing this because i know you all think it's impossible and i probably said it was impossible but i'm going to try and i'm going to bring incredible energy to it. by the way, mr. gnat gnat, mr. abbas, when you tell me you're too busy today, that's okay, i'll sit in the lobby and see you tomorrow." this is just a rail relentlessness to this guy. >> rose: and not telling everybody the details everyday. >> and they haven't leaked. >> rose: not one leak. hard to find. >> so he's really kept a tight ship. i think he's done it in a smart way.

but we what do know is this, charlie. he's basically -- let's go for the iran deal first. what he's constructed to the iranians is basically a choice. do you want to be a big north korea or do you want to be a persian china? do you want to be a country that's powerful and feared because you're building a nuclear weapon-- in which case you'll be completely isolated-- or do you want to shrink that nuclear program down to one which you and your neighbors in the world will be happy to live with and instead build your greatness around empowering your own people to realize their full potential. we forget because iran's been isolated now for 34 years. a lot of our life. this is a great civilization. this is a great -- we're talking persia here. and it's been completely suppressed. and i think by saying to the iranians "we're ready to let you enrich up to your actual research and electrical needs-- which are minimal-- we're ready to acknowledge your own pride that you have developed your own ren richment capability. we're ready to do that but we're

not ready to allow you to become a nuclear weapon state. if you're ready to buy that deal you can be part of the global community again. that's a real choice. with the israelis he's basically said "you have three choices in life, you only get two. you want to be a jewish state, you want to be a democratic state and you want to be a state in all the land of israel, israel and the west bank. but in this world you only get two out of three. buck jewish and democratic but you can't be in all the land of israel there will be too many palestinians. you can be democratic in all the land of israel but you can't be jewish and buck in all the land of israel and democratic -- and jewish but you can't be democratic." okay? so you've got to choose. which one do you want to be? and what kerry's strategy is, charlie, is to go right at the security issue. basically saying "you have a legitimate security concern. even paranoids have enemies and the israelis today legitimately

they have non-state actors armed with missiles nested among civilians on four borders-- sinai, gaza, lebanon and syria. that's no joke. what kerry is basically saying is let's take on that security need that you have. and by the way, we know some people who are good at security, our own pentagon. so he goes to the former marine commander john allen, he says "come with me, let's design -- take on this project. what would be as foolproof a security plan you can put in place here?" and then say to israelis, you know, one of the most important things i've always felt in dealing with the israelis is if you want to be taken seriously there you have to answer one question for them. do you know what neighborhood i'm living in? and i think kerry's starting can conversation there. saying "i know what neighborhood you're living in. here's as best i can design a security plan. in order to say to you if you go there way, no." what he's trying to say is i can change the balance between risks

and opportunities. there's going to be a balance, but doing nothing is always a big risk. we see mounting israeli palestinian violence. we see groups like the american studies association in america now joining the movement to delegitimize and isolate israel. so doing nothing -- and so what kerry is trying to do is saying i'm going to put this choice before you and i think the balance of risk and students are here. and where the opportunities are greater. >> rose: and do you find, do you believe from those other places like tehran and like ramallah, that these questions are finding some resonance? >> yeah, definitely. you see them wrestling with them. so let's go through a couple of examples. i saw an interview the other day with the iranian foreign minister, ja have had a zarif. and the iranians went nuts and said we're going to walk out!

we'll leave and this is a violation of the interim agreement. we have the same objectives so i'll say about the iranians, i think i'll step back-- and context everything is. sobly the iranians at the table? because they had an election several months ago which you and i talked about at the time in which sex men were allowed to run. only men, of course, and these were their names: mr. black, mr. black, mr. black, mr. black, mr. light black. okay? one guy was just a little more moderate than the others. >> rose: and guess who won? >> guess who 51%, 50.4% of the iranians voted? mr. light black. out of the blue, by the way. and i'm told the actual number was 64%. the regime was so freaked out! they said "he squeaked by!" but they know what it was and what that told you is down below there's a huge quest of all

these iranians half the countries under the age 30, some huge number, they've never heard of the shah. but they have heard of facebook. they have heard of twitter and they've heard of the internet and the european union and america so the iranians aren't at the table by accident. history works this way. in fairness to secretary clinton she deserves credit for putting these sanctions in place, the ones that got russia and china on board and president obama as well. really turned the screw. >> rose: and they had a different iran to work with. >> absolutely. by the way, a different israel. the condition now, different palestinians. so i'm not criticizing her but history -- you know, i showed this up in beirut in april, 1982. israel invaded six weeks later. there's dumb luck and serendipity in all of these things and kerry came along with the right energy at the right time. >> rose: right. and willing to take the risk. >> exactly. >> rose: he's not thinking about

running for political office. >> not running for anything. >> there's a swan song. so he acts like a guy, you see the frenetic way he's traveled but with a purpose. he acts like a guy saying i've only got so much time. and god bless him. >> rose: but where does syria fit into all this? in this equation you just -- because he's taken risk there is too. >> rose: let's go back to our ripeness idea. and richard haass from the council of foreign relations wrote about this a long time ago. maybe syria now is getting to the point of exhaustion where all the parties will be ready to come to the table. i lived through this. i lived through five through 10 of the lebanese civil war. lasted 14 years all told. how did the war end? it ended in 1989, it ended, charlie, on once principle: no victor, no vanquished. no victor no vanquished and the minority, because of lebanon, the christians needed

overrepresentative to assure them the final deal. i said in the very beginning "syria will only wednesday no victor no vanquish." the idea that the alawites will defeat the fundamentalists, the fundamentalists will defeat the alawites, that's a question. when do the parties there basically say "we're ready to step back"? >> rose: you have ryan crocker now saying-- former ambassador of iraq and syria-- reengage with assad. even though we said, you know he should leave, you don't necessarily have to withdraw that. you have to reengage. circumstances are different. and the nature of the opposition is different. >> i think it's very good advice and goes back to no victor no vanquish. we end to want to -- look, what assad has done is not just bad, it's despicable, okay? the people he's killed, his own country, the way he's destroyed it. but, you know, in this

neighborhood it's hama rules. you know, they're -- >> rose: explain what hama rules are. >> well, it goes back to the city of hama, back in 1982 when i just arrived in beirut. he faced a challenge then from the equivalent of the al nusra front, islamic fundamentalists who tried to launch a revote out of the town of hama, the fourth largest in syria. he crushed it by leveling the town. i'm not speaking metaphorically here. i mean blowing up the buildings and steam rolling them. and that -- those are the local rules hachlt ma rules are no rules at all. so that's the way the regime plays but it's not like the other side, charlie, are somehow representatives of virtue and madisonian principles. there are some decent people who are democrats but they're not an empower mad jorty and somehow we've got to get everybody to

the table, you know, negotiating -- my friend bob pastor works for president clinton, sharing with me an idea that -- worked for president carter, i'm sorry, working on which is that everyone should have to agree on three principles: cease-fire, number one, number two you agree to majority election. you have to agree to that. but you have to agree that everybody gets to come to the table. if you try to construct a deal where you don't get to come by i get to come it will never happen. >> rose: everybody comes to the table because everybody wants to come to the table? >> it's not clear. and here, charlie, is jeff we have to take it up a level, where we need the russians involved, where we need them to lean on assad. we need the saudis to lean on the sunni militias and we obviously need to lean on everybody. i don't think they're going to come by themselves but we're getting to the state of exhaustions. i hope so. >> rose: and the russians can play a positive role? >> i'm a huge believer and have

been ever since you and i talked about nato expansion 20 years ago. that there's no big felon the world that we can solve in a sustainable way without the help of russia. >> rose: look at russia and the ukraine. >> and that's, you know, -- i will tell you part of that goes back to nato expansion. nato expansion was the gift that kept on giving because what nato expansion basically said to the russians, we broke a promise to them, we pushed nato right up to your borders, it was humiliating to them. it was done under yeltsin and putin represents the backlash. and ask yourself this-- and unfortunately putin's gotten addicted to this, charlie, but he's basically discovered, wow, running against america, man, this is like being in the tea party. this is good as it gets. so he's discovered such great domestic politics for him to run against america and the west. they want to keep us down, they want to encroach on our boarders. i'm not a defender of putin, bad

guy, wants to do bad things but at the same time we can't do anything without him. >> rose: and he has a strategy, too. he has a strategy from russia to play a role. >> you've got to -- people forget this. the russian orthodox church plays a very important role in putin's russia. in his psyche and the christians of syria are predominantly orthodox so you have the church there. people don't see this, they're whispering in his ear that assad is the a protector of the christians. and that's a factor in their thinking, too, that i think we've ignored. you don't see that but it's part of their thinking. >> rose: rep into this whole possibility of the enlargement of the shi'a versus sunni warfare exploding outside of syria. >> i'd say a couple things, charlie. one is that we hoped when the lid came off with the arab spring that what we saw is something you and i and a friend

talked about, we always see people grabbing their freedom from. so freedom from the assad government. freedom from the mubarak government. freedom from the qaddafi government. but what it turned out was they couldn't agree on freedom two. this is the berlin idea of what do you want to be free to do. some wanted to be free to be more islamist. some wanteding to free to be more sectarian. more shiite or sunni. and some wanted to be free to be more democratic. and that's the problem. there was no agreement -- >> rose: wanted to be free to be like everybody else. >> in that sense to be like citizens. so because of that that's why we've seen all these revolutions sort of stall, because there really was no consensus what they wanted to be free to. >> rose: and a lot of times the people wanting to war were not necessarily good or were interested in governance. >> exactly. we've learned that lesson time and again. that it's very difficult in these modern revolutions now where everyone's kind of equal

to develop leadership. and one of the pieces i take away from this is how much leadership and the right kind of leadership in particular really matters. and that's a nelson mandela point. that you need these popular movements to sweep away these regimes but whether it's in business or politics, yes, the bottom is being empowered more, that's great and it's exciting but you still need a leader. you need in the business, you need someone to edit what's coming up, all this innovation. and in politics you need someone to edit and direct. someone's got a little elevation, can see what where we're going over the crowd. and that's been the struggle of all these movements from occupy wall street to tahrir square. >> rose: and you even saw it with people like yitzhak rabin. >> you need leaders. leaders matter. >> rose: they matter and leaders are able to say "trust me" to the people. "i'm going to take a chance. trust me, i understand your reservations, believe me." and as you suggested, nelson

mandela, your famous point in "invictus." now that's surprising. we're not able to be like them. >> and that's what's so missing in the israeli/palestinian context, the power of surprise. that bibi would wake up in the morning and just say -- abu mazen just lives 45 minutes from here. i'm going to drive over to his house sunday morning. whatever. or, by the way, not just be with it but for the king of saudi arabia saying "i don't just have this peace plan, bibi, come to riyadh." can you imagine the shock to the israeli people to see their president fly in an el al plane? it's so rare. >> rose: and imagine the challenge of the president of the united states when he finds out that israel and saudi arabia and the emirates are on the same page and they're saying to him "we're not sure we can trust you. we're not sure you know what you mean when you call that red line. we're not sure if push comes to

shove you're going to be there." >> i'd say a couple things about that. that is telling us a big point. which is that underneath the sanctions, as long as they were in place, they were disguise ago whole set of differences between the parties. because -- so let's go through them. america, israel, say saudi arabia. so for america, we actually are comfortable with an iran that -- we're ready to tolerate an iran that can enrich nuclear materials providing we can prevent them from making it into a bomb. why is that? because, charlie, we tried, lord knows you and i talked about this. we tried for ten years after 9/11 to control the middle east, afghanistan, iraq, with our own boots on the ground. we have not been very successful and we paid a huge price. going forward we feed to be able to stabilize that area without being by ourselves. how do you do that? by balancing the two big sunni scheidt powers. we need a relationship with iran and what people forget is when we went into to afghanistan, the iranians played a vital role in helping us defeat taliban, a sunni fundamentalist militia

that the iranians oppose. if we want to get out of afghanistan and leave stability there, we need them as well. so we have a need for our own relationship with tehran and also, remember, this is a great civilization, a multicultural, multiethnic society not unlike ours in terms of its ethnographic composition, that is its own whacky limited democracy, empowers women. this is a country that's a lot like us. you know who sense that the most? the gulf arabs. they sense that -- >> rose: that's why they're their mortal enemy. >> that's right. so we can live with a certain kind of iran. now, the israelis also can actually live -- they can live with a strong iran as long as it's not meddling around with hezbollah. the gulfis, for them iran is persia and shiites. they don't want them to be strong at all. so i was just in saudi arabia and the feeling you get there is kind of the cartoon image i draw is that iran was like the big

brother who 34 years ago walked out of the house and slammed the door. >> rose: yes. >> you took his bicycle, i took his tennis shoes, he took his bed. okay? 34 years he's gone and we all had an undiluted relationship with our uncle sam and he was never there! last month, knock knock. (laughs) stock? he's back! and they're just freaking out. i mean, he's back, he wants his bicycle, his bed, his shoes and his own relationship with uncle sam. >> rose: and they're talking to each other. >> and what they really sense and fear sr. that they like each other, stock? and so that's really -- that's freaking them out. so then the israelis have an interest around the nuclear thing. but i would argue even that starts to separate because the israelis would like nothing more to go back to what was a natural relationship between jews and persia is very deep and long. if every jew lived in persia

there would be six million more jews alive in the world today. so we also know that in our own d.n.a. so these guys sense all of that and my message to to them is don't fight -- try to fight this? you've got to build your own relationship. do you want to spend the rest of your life replaying this shiite/sunni fighting from the 7th century? how's that going to work out for you. >> rose: do you think the iranians would be willing to do what you asked them do about hezbollah? do you say "you've got to stop supporting hezbollah, you have to let them go"? because if they let them go it's all over for hezbollah in lebanon, isn't it? >> absolutely. and i think you know, i need your help in afghanistan, you need some boeing spare parts? okay for those boeing planes you bought 30 years ago and don't have the spare parts. the cool thing is, charlie -- >> rose: and it all plays together. everything in motion. >> exactly.

and that's what's exciting about this and when you have a secretary of state who's ready to play -- i was watching cnn yesterday and they had an interview with a senator who is the senator from where robert levinson, this guy missing in iran, is from. and i made a note of it. he said "so i called the iranian ambassador at the u.n. yesterday and i said could you pass this message." whoa! roll that back. and he said "by the way, i called the iranian --" you see how quickly things open up and where no one even says hey, wow. and you bet the iranian ambassador took his call. >> rose: explain levinson. >> you know more about than that than i do, i'm afraid. >> rose: for example, my colleague john miller, former f.b.i., who know it is family has asked me would i interview the iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad. so ahmadinejad, one time i asked him and basically he said, look, you know, he knew of him when i mentioned him, knew who he was

about, didn't say the me "he's a c.i.a. guy" but a lot of people in america didn't know that. that was a disclosure we just had. >> right. interesting. >> rose: but they kept sort of suggesting they had him. >> interesting. >> rose: but then you had zarif saying "we don't have him. if we had him we'd deliver him. those poor people in the family, we have such sympathy, if we knew where he was we would tell you." >> i don't understand it either. if they did have him and turned him over, let him go home, boy, that would unlock a lot of good will for them. so the thing about iran, there are veils inside veils inside veils and you never know which veil you'll have. >> rose: and everybody's gut reacting should we trust them. >> no. >> rose: the same way it's why should we trust the palestinians they started lobbying missiles. >> but these are legitimate questions and what kerry is trying to do is saying "i hear you. i'm going to build up as much security structure on this side

and i'm going to lay out this opportunity on the other side because you still have the arab peace initiative which says if you and the palestinians make peace you'll have relations with every arab country and every islamic country." so he's not coming to them saying "no risk, nothing to worry about. these are good guys, they told me." >> rose: and he's not saying it's not that your point is a bad point." >> right, let me address that but build up the opportunity side and put them a balanced choice for you. >> rose: so you've been to china and singapore. >> just recently. i'm worried about them kicking the press out. >> rose: here's my question about china. if you talk to people now what they'll tell you that the consensus is that china went through this phase called peaceful rise. now it's gotten so big that they

don't need to rise so peacefully anymore, you know what i mean? that's one theory. >> rose: or we can have global demand. >> right. >> rose: like japan's island. >> exactly. i come at it a little differently. i think it's a frightened china more than a rising china. i think you're sitting where xi jinping is sitting and you are, charlie, riding such a tiger. you now have 300,000 bloggers. the pollution is so thick i couldn't see you if we were sitting on the street. the problems they face are so gargantuan that i think they are as frightened as they are feeling empowered. and i think we should keep that in mind. you look at the islands issue in the south china sea. they're making the claims of the

islands. but the japanese haven't been innocent in going out and buying the islands, poking china. these people are have a history. you see in downtown seoul they have these guys riding on horse back and they're all generals in the war since japan and you remember these guys have their own history outside of us. korea/china, china/japan, we talk about middle east and cultural and tribal wars, they have their same versions there, they've just been able to suppress them with economic growth better. >> rose: but xi jinping has more problems in terms of how many people he has to bring from the rural areas to the urban. and when you bring them now they have to have a job. if they don't have a job then they're part of the problem. >> so i spoke at a university in shanghai last month and what was so striking to me is how many times i got ask the question from young people there that i get asked in america. which is "am i going to have a job?"

and the big challenge for china right now is that they've got to get rich before they get old. so think about china. 20 years ago china was the story of two maternal grandparents and two paternal grandparents and two parents all saving for mac laptop for one kid. one child policy. now it's going to flip. now that one kid is going to be paying the nursing home bills of maybe two grandparents, one set of parents, and for that kid to be able to do that, he needs a job that isn't just stamping out the glass for iphones. he needs a job that's knowledge-based. that has real value add. because those assembly jobs also they're moving to vietnam, they're moving to cambodia and to have a knowledge economy, well, you have to loosen up a little bit. we're going to have a knowledge economy but you can't use google. really. you can't use bloomberg and you can't read the "new york times." let me know how that works out for you. >> rose: (laughs) the people you're competing with? >> they're all doing that. and you have your chinese

versions. but -- and i think that's the challenge they face. and i think it's terrifying. and, by the way, i wish them well. when i talk to speak sometimes, charlie, i don't use the word china. i much prefer to use the word "one-sixth of humanity." we're talking about one-sixth of humanity. >> rose: seven billion there. >> exactly. so how they make the transition between where they are now to a more open sloot hafkt everything from the quality of the air we breathe to the value of the currency in our pockets to the cost of the shoes on our feet. so i wish them well. >> rose: i have a chinese friend who has some power and connections and he just sent me an e-mail from china saying "i'm working hard to get you and your program seen in china." >> interesting. >> rose: and not just in beijing i'm making some progress here. you're well known in china. he said "i think you would be

seen by about a hundred million people." now, that's a small part of the chinese population. a hundred million people? that's one-third of the entire population. one-third of the entire population. >> rose: china is my second biggest book market. that's true for movie makers, car makers, that's true for everybody. >> but that's also true for chinese and something bill gates said in the world is flat a long time ago which is that in china when you're one in a million $1,300 people just like you that. 's when you're one in a million, you know? and so the law of large numbers kicks in and that's why i wish them well. we need to be very smart about drawing red lines where necessary, building bridges where possible. >> rose: we draw red lines in terms of -- how do you incorporate in terms of questions of freedom of expression and human rights into drawing red lines? because that gets tricky if you

look and say how do you apply that policy here? how do you apply that policy there? >> well, i think the efforts in our clinton years and first bush years failed. we tried to dictate that and it failed. the president used to go with a list of political prisoners we wanted to release and they said that's not going to happen. we have to come to terms with the fact that it's going to happen at their own pace. the point i tried to make in writing about the press issue is that what seems to be china's leadership hasn't realized is that something really big happened in the world in the last decade and i think world went from connected to hyper connected. three things are happening at the same time, charlie. wealth gets concentrated at the top in this hyperconnected world. if you have global skills now you can really -- we're talking about china. if you can access to china market, whether you're a ballerina, a t.v. interviewer, a journalist, an author or an

athlete. so wealth gets concentrated at the top. but power gets distributed at the bottom and transparency gets injected everywhere. so in a world where wealth gets concentrated in the top at the china, the ruling family is amassing huge fortunes, but power gets distributed at the bottom. 300 million chinese online. i can see your ferrari, okay? and by the way, i just tweeted about it to my neighbor. you may cut that off but we'll find a way around it. power gets distributed at the bottom, transparency gets injected everywhere. in that world you better govern in a way that people are going to tolerate. so it doesn't have to be democratic per se but it better be legitimate because you're going to lose your legitimacy. so what's the scariest thing for xi jinping today? let's go back to bloomberg and the "new york times." why have they been threatening to throw us both out? so the chinese economy over the last ten years gets financialize

sod they develop a shareholder culture, markets, they have to comply with global standards. that means everyone's ownership has to be registered in a public way. so what did bloomberg and the "new york times" do? no one came to either of us, i believe. i can't speak to bloomberg but i can speak to the "new york times." no one came to us and said "wen jiabao's mother is worth $100 million." that prime minister wen jiabao's mother is worth $100 million and his kids, aunts, and uncles are worth $2.7. no one slipped an envelope under the door of our shanghai bureau. we hired lawyers and accountants and we just looked it up now imagine how scary that was to the chinese leadership now they think it's conspiracy. maybe somebody tipped off somebody in the beginning but the whole project was done with lawyers and accountants and

public records. so in that kind of world, that kind of transparent world they're going to have to govern in a different way. if they don't take this as a warning heart attack, you know? what bloomberg and the "new york times" did in putting the stories together that the president's family was worth a vast fortune and the former premier's family was worth a vast fortune. the number one cause of death in chinese regimes in history is corruption at the top. >> rose: i was thinking about that as you were talking. someone i know is head of corruption. the he's in the standing committee. he's vice premier, he's got the title to clean it up, ostensibly we just saw recently a leadership one member of some one level of corruption gone.

>> rose: their idea of cleanup, charlie was at the local level, press report on corruption, at the provincial state level, report on corruption but thou shalt not report on corruptions at the highest levels of the communist party. and they feel we broke a bargain and we feel they broke a bargain with their own people. at the provincial level he had gone nuts and got so greedy and then people could see it and they reacted. so i think there's a very important transition, we need to be smart about it. draw red line when necessary, build bridges where possible. don't feed the national inists because the regime can turn it against us by saying dwlt go the americans, there go the west, they want to keep us. >> rose: i want to talk about domestic issues but first, is there an obama doctrine? has he changed or sr. there some consistency of thought and

strategy with people like ehud barak are always talking to me about strategy. you have to have a plan. you have to have a strategy. >> i'd have a hard timele with a rorschach west the barack obama. where he's he going? for a couple reasons. one, charlie, is healthcare.gov. when i was in saudi arabia they said "what are the president's foreign policy priorities? i said that's easy, healthcare.gov, healthcare.gov, healthcare.gov, healthcare.gov. if that doesn't work he's a failed president. and he will have no authority or very limited authority to do anything. so he clearly has to get that fixed. i think that's so much air and energy out of every other part of the agenda that i couldn't tell you. again, rorschach test, what is his vision, what is his plan for a second term? i couldn't tell you. and how he's constructed his team, if i wanted to be critical

i want to say he's surrounded by people. everybody has his back but nobody has his front. there's nobody in his face. i ask myself, who's the person who gets in his face and says "that's a really stupid idea" or we really screwed up here, we need to do x, y, or z. or let's get crazy, let's try a carbon tax. forget what the pollsters tell you. >> rose: when you say that, tell me who has performed that role in previous presidents? who got in bill clinton's face? who got in george w. bush's space? who got in bush 41s face? maybe the answer to that is -- different people at different times. >> rose: it could have been jim baker and george bush. >> i think hillary got into bill's face. among others. as far as george w. bush, i don't know. i don't know enough about the inner dynamics of that.

>> what's interesting in terms of this president, on some of the important decision points, the question of going into syria and doing something more -- >> they walked around the rose garden. >> rose: it was universal. the universal idea was everybody say do it, you have to do it now and they didn't do it. on the other hand when he went into get osama bin laden, they were against him, too. he took that decision, turned out to be the right decision. very risky. very risky. >> i guess my general -- the president has done a lot of good things that i would praise him for. i hope we do have national health care that works. i think it's the right idea for the right time. things he's done on auto mileage and -- there's things he's done that i've liked but the things

that frustrated me about him charlie is that i voted for him for a reason. i'm not supposed to say who i voted for but i voted for him for one reason. i thought he would change the polls, not read the polls. and he's done more reading than changing and it gets back to the kerry piece and the piece i wrote about nelson mandela. what was it that gave nelson mandela that moral authority? it's that at times he was unafraid to challenge his own base. i would say obama has never really gotten in the face of his own base which give mandela the moral authority to challenge the whites in a obama the authority to challenge republicans in a different way. in fairness to obama i think he's dealing with the craziest version of the republican party that any modern president has had to deal with. so i challenge my base and i lose them, i get the republicans coming to me? and in fairness i can't say that

he would. i think we are dealing with a republican party now that is being led around by a tea party cult, whatever it is. >> rose: although the newest budget may suggest less of a power -- >> rose: >> i hope so. but in fairness to him -- i would love them to take these next three years and just say i'm going to put on the table all the stuff off the table. >> rose: i think part of the income inequality should be him saying i'm putting this on the table. and it may be because of changed circumstances with what happened in attorneyian elections there are opportunities that would not present themselves before and because he's obsessed by health care-- as he should be-- he basically says to john kerry, you know -- >> you do that and let me finish health care and i really hope he does. >> rose: and i'm give you more line inthan i've ever given any other secretary of state. >> what i'm missing from the current discussion-- and this is

not in any way all obama's fault or the fact that healthcare.gov is taking so much of the air, the current discussion is dominated by taxes or no taxes, income inequality, entitlement reform. all of these things and they're all important and legitimate. but nobody's talking about growth. all the things that actually will make solving those easier. >> rose: two things. one, i'll come back to growth. one is how you factor in today we look at america's future the fact that we now have energy independence on the horizon. what impact does that have on the things we've been talking about and including our own domestic economy? >> let's go back to the middle east. what do think intuit? i think in the last four or five years as we become more energy independent the middle east for

america has gone from being a necessary toy a hobby. i have hobbies, i like that work on model airplanes and when i had hobbies somedays i worked on them, some days i didn't. and what they have sensed is some things have changed with us. the sense of urgency about the middle east is gone. and they're right. okay? because one thing we know, we're never going to face 1973 gas lines ever again. now, how the middle east evolves and that it should evolve in a stable way is still a critical interest of ours because our trading partners-- china, india and europe-- are still dependent on middle east oil so it's not like we can sit back and say i don't care what happens, let the oil price go wherever it is but the sense of urgency gone. i think the critical think is how do we use this bounty? do we use this bounty to say we're energy independent? that's party! or do we use it to say wow, we just got a huge windfall.

let's use this to -- as a bridge to a clean energy economy if we take natural gas and use it for solar and wind we'll make a mistake, if we take natural gas and subs it too it for coal and dirty fuels we'll do the greatest thing we can for our kids. >> rose: i forgot to mention, what do you make of edward snowden revelations and what seems to be happening now with both a clear recommendation that the n.s.a. has got to change and the president is suggesting -- >> very little because i keep reading all the stories and i learn a little bit more all the time when i read them. but i think if you add up everything, what comes through to me is that snowden was a whistle-blower. and that technology had leapt ahead.

technology's ability to vacuum up information has leapt ahead of our ability -- not our ability but our almost paying attention to the regulatory adaptations we need to preserve the kind of privacy we need. i don't know as a country if we grant him asylum. i'd be willing to consider that come back, give us everything you haven't disclosed. >> rose: that's subject for debate? >> i think it's worthy of consideration but i think in total the more i read, the more i see some of the legal judgments, i know there's debate about it, i'm not an expert in the area. i always still worry that we're doing it at a time when we feel like there will never be another 9/11 and i think we do need an n.s.a. that's compatible with our laws so i think there are real enemies out there but on balance snowden looks more and more like a whistle-blower

everyday and i think we should find a way to end this chapter. >> rose: he didn't act like most whistle-blowers. >> it's a complicated case. i don't have the right recommendation but i think that's discussion we should be in. what does he need to do? what do we need to do to bring this to some closure. >> rose: there's also talking about the economy, we have often talked about nation building as a team. it has to do with education and science and the research and use of technology. it has to do with being competitive in the 21st century. and you look and point at the studies often. we're now 18th and 20th among nations who were ahead of us in education. >> i just wrote about the pisa result. that's the most popular but it was interesting for me because i just flew into shanghai with the

man who runs pisa and a woman who runs teach for america. and we visited the school in shanghai that won. this was really interesting. they'll say you don't understand. they cherry pick those kids. 40% of those kids come from migrant families from the country side. that's the chinese equivalent of disadvantaged neighborhood. and i go saying "what's the secret? you can tell me." they stand on their head for 30 minutes in the morning? you make them hold their breath? they have double servings of dr. tim? what is the secret? >> and it was so -- this school ten years ago was a failing school. that's also very important.

so they were failing and they put something in place and now their world -- so it wasn't like they were always there so the tse secret they developed this system. so if you don't have a scale solution, off hobby and that won't change the climate or anything else education is another scale problem and the only way you get a scale solution is when you have a system. a system that allows ordinary people do extraordinary things. that's the only way you get big change so think about the last time you stayed in a european hotel. they gave you a plastic key card. when you got to the room the power was off, you stuck hit in the slot, all the power came on. when you walked out of your room for dinner, you took the key out all the power went off. that's allowing you as an ordinary person to do an extraordinary thing, to stay in a hotel and save energy at the same time. so in you need the same thing

for education. and the system is based on getting ordinary teachers to become extraordinary by in part allowing them to teach 70% of their time and spend 30% of their time on person development with other teachers constantly working on their craft. >> rose: a one on one session with the students? 30% of the time -- >> working on their own craft, professional development. the other thing they do with that 30% extra time, the teachers we talked to they said on average i have three e-mail conversations or phone calls with every kids' parents in my class every week. so they bring parents in and tutor them on computer skills and math so they will be better able to help their kids. then they take their best

teachers. not that they've made the average teachers better, they apply them for the hardest kids. so that's the system. the system is we take the average teachers and make them better and we take the great teachers and apply them the hardest problems. that's really the key. kids come to school prepared to learn not text. >> rose: how do you create a culture? >> culture is powerful but culture can change. look at kip. my wife is the chairman of the board. it was one of the schools in waiting for super man. they create a culture. kip creates a culture where you have to have ownership over your own learning. a culture that says your learning and how well you will

be directly connected to how well you do in the world. in the job, as a citizen. young supreme to make that connection and when they don't have that sense of ownership -- ownership is the key to life. when you own something charlie, i can never ask you to do more than you'll do on your own. when you feel ownership as a country, as a student. you as a boss here. when you tell one of your producers "you own this segment, baby." and in the history of the world, no one has washed a rented car. i consider that like the 11th commandment. when people own things it's amazing what they will do on their own. >> so we have to improve teaching in order that we don't end up as 18th or 19? >> because see how did we we've always laged in international tests but what do we do? we had big immigration so we

creamed off aunl all the global talent, they came here. that was one thing we did. we had a lot of walls to prevent competition from indians or chinese so we had that and we had a generation who were educate it had old-fashioned way. real fundamentalist. that generation is dying off. and the calls have come down, we talked about this once before, to me central socioeconomic fact of our time is that average is officially over. every boss has cheaper, more efficient access to above average cheap labor, above average robotics and, oh, my god above average cheap genius.

so what built the middle-class in the cold war? it was something called the high wage middle skilled job. stephanie sanford sr. a -- >> rose: kind of began with i'm going to get these people. >> high wage middle skilled job. today there is no high wage middle skilled job. there's just a high wage high skilled job. every middle-class job is pulled in three directions at. it either pulled up more skill. out, more people, computers, software, or down. it's being outsourced to history faster than ever so the thing that got us through the '50s, '60s, '70s and declining in the '90s and 2000s it won't do it for 21st century. everyone has to be in the process of life long learning. >> rose: and the internet allows that. >> the internet enables that. we can do it more cheaply. but reed hoffman, the founder of

linked in, wrote this. it's a start of a you. you have to own it now more. it applies to me. it applies to -- average is over for me. i always tell people, you know, before this thing there w china started -- well, just think about this. i became a columnist in in january, 1995, for the "times." and i inherited what was the office used in the washington bureau of the "new york times". what a thrill. i inherited the office that this great editor and columnist in of the "times" in the '60s and '70s use, james reston. i suspect mr. reston when he was writing his column used to get up every morning and say to himself "i wonder what my seven competitors are going to write today." and he personally knew all seven. walter lipman, where joseph craft. i do the same thing. i come to the same office and say to myself say every morning "i wonder what my 70 million competitors are going to write today."

70 million competitors! bloggers, writers! online magazines. it's incredibly enriching for me because i can see what's going on out there. and learning from people who weren't traditional journalists but are full of insight. it's a totally different environment. average is over for me, too. just like everybody else. >> rose: thank you for coming. >> pleasure. >> rose: what's the next book? >> just toying with it now. the idea in my head is something about all the transitions i've mean? the last 20 years and it might be called "second draft of history." you know, the first draft is the reporting. second draft is the the reporting columnist in who says "i think it might be about this or that." >> rose: who begins to see trends. >> and the third draft is the historian so i'm thinking about the second draft of history. >> rose: good luck. on the next charlie rose, a conversation with leonardo dicaprio and martin is scorsese about the new movie "the wolf of wall street." >> it was just about everyone taking on this hedonistic

attitude and giving into every temptation possible and every actor sort of that that air about them on set and so it allowed for all these insane possibilities every single day. i mean, everyone was kind of pushed -- pushed the envelope. but what was interesting more than anything-- and i think -- >> rose: is it the most fun set you've ever been on? >> it was hard to get there in the morning sometimes because i didn't know what was going to happen. >> but the truth is we imp vitz a lot of this beforehand but then when we got on set and working with the other actors it became -- it spiraled into a multitude of different directions and it was very freeing in a lot of ways.

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