>> rose: welcome to the program. don't an encore presentation of my conversation with bruce riedel of the brookings intelligence project. >> >> i think the big lesson there is you can't just walk away from afghanistan. this is a very dangerous part of the world. it seems to be a place where important things happen because not only was it a global changer in terms of the end of the cold war, we can now say 25 years later it was the start of the global jihad. >> rose: bruce riedel for the hour next. funding for "charlie rose" is provided by the following. >> there's a saying around here: you stand behind what you say. around here, we don't make excuses, we make commitments. and when you can't live up to

them, you own up and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it, when you know where to look. >> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg. a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. we turn now to afghanistan, efforts to complete that country's first democratic transition continues. a deal brokered by john kerry appears to be in peril. both practice chul agreed to an

audit of the vote and the formation of a unity government. differences are now emerging between the camps of abdullah abdullah as withdrawal of as the withdrawal of u.s. troops draws closer, taliban is making gains in the south and near kabul. bruce riedel knows afghanistan history well. he is a senior fellow and director of the brookings intelligence project. he's written a new book called "what we won: america's secret war in afghanistan from 1979 to 1989". i am pleased to have him back at this table. welcome. i should say anybody who wants to understand afghanistan and pakistan turns to you as you including the president of the united states because you were the principal advicer of the president of the united states as he was formulating pakistan and afghanistan policy even bob woodward said the foremost intelligence expert of pakistan and afghanistan is still part of the in that pivotal part of the world that is still president obama's war

today. what is the future of afghanistan? >> we are at the moment of truth, charlie, in the future of afghanistan. >> first the presidential election, we are on the precipice. one of these two individuals, either mr. abdullah abdullah will have to admit he lost. that is not going to be easy. it is not easy for an afghan politician to admit he lost. he won't even have to admit he lost, he will have to admit he cheated on an industrial scale and tried to scale the election. let's assume we can get over this hurdle, get behind the presidential elections. one of them is beyond the president. then next year we'll see whether the president's gamble that we could build an afghan army good enough. >> rose: president of the united states. president of the united states. >> five years ago, that we could build afghan army good enough to contain the taliban will pay off. it's always been gamble.

at this point indications look looks like the afghan army is holding by and large but there are troubling incidents. fights in kandahar this last week in which the afghan army looks like it did fairly poorly. we'll have to watch it closely for the next two years. it could unravel like iraq did. that's why it is careful not to set our posture in january 2007 teen today. the president has kind of backed himself into a corner on that and i think that -- >> >> rose: why did though that? >> i am not a psychologist. i don't know why he did it. >> rose: i know very few people think that was a wise thing to indicate by date when you would withdraw x number of troops. >> well, in any war, one of the most important things you want to do is keep your enemy in doubt as to about what your intentions are. it is always something of a

mistake to signal your plans in advance to the enemy and telling them that by this date will be at this level of forces and by this date will be down to zero. now, the good news is, having decided to set these so far in advance, the president has time now to change his mind, and i think the lesson of iraq ought to influence that. we saw in iraq that we used kind of an egg timer approach. >> rose: right. >> it turned out afterwards that we had miscalculated whether al qaeda or al qaedaism could recover and it recovered use. >> and we also miscalculated in terms of what the government of iraq might be like. >> that's right, that's right. all i am arguing for is that we need to maintain flexibility. don't make decisions now that are going to happen string you later on or even worse in this case,. >> rose: so you stay there until how long? >> oh, i would continue on the path we are on, moving down to half the number, moving down to

3,000, 4,000 in 2006 teen, but i wouldn't decide what 2007 teen is today, i would just way wait and see, maybe we will need 2,000, maybe we will need nobody .. you know everything i know and other things but there are stories what happened to the weapons the united states provided. they don't even have a accountability of what happened to those weapons and whose hands they are in. >> this president inherited a disaster in afghanistan. when i did the strategic review in 2009, this country was on the verge of catastrophic failure in afghanistan. yes, no one did bookkeeping. no one had any idea who the enemy was. no one realized that pakistan was playing both sides of the fence. >> rose: and still are. >> and still are. you start from that base, of course you are not going to know how much harms are in the hands of the afghan army at this stage. we didn't do our homework for seven years. it is a little hard in a conflict to start catching up in

the eighth and ninth year of the conflict. >> rose: i mean, tell me why, i am asking this naively why is it so hard to build an army in a country like afghanistan? >> it is a very good question. you know, the soviets in the 1980s actually built an afghan air force which is three or four times larger than what we have built in afghanistan over the last decade. that's amazing to me. why could the soviets train afghans to fly airplanes and not us? you know, couldn't we get russian manuals and teach them in russian or something like that? >> hire their instructors or something. >> i think it comes down to a question of resources. for the longest time, no resources went to afghanistan. they all went to iraq. when we finally started flowing the resources in 2009 and 2010, we imposed a timeline on how long that was going to be. we can still pull this out, but all along the way, from the day we went into afghanistan in 2001 we have inflicted damage on ourselves over and over and over

again in this war. >> was the biggest damage the ininvestigation of iraq? >> absolutely, absolutely. >> the best and the brightest of the united states intelligence community had been sent to afghanistan in 2001 in early 2002, they are all pulled out. >> where were all those smart people from the pentagon and national security council when that decision was made? >> a lot of people protested it, but they did it very quietly. >> rose: don't do this now because of afghanistan? >> not because of whether the weapons of mass destruction or not. >> right. >> rose: because what happens in afghanistan will be eroded. >> right, right. by two superpowers, which had been poor to start with and try to get it back on track you

needed to butt in resources. what did we do? >> we put in roughly 10,000 troops for the next three years. it was like putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. >> rose: could we have done nothing about corruption? >> corruption in central and south asia -- let me put it differently. corruption across asia is a big challenge. with we are not going to fix it. >> and what do you leave once you defeat al qaeda? >> i think one of the things we need to leave after 2006 teen is some kind of residual counter-terrorism capability and i will be clear what i mean, drones that doesn't mean you have to have drone strikes in pakistan every day or even every month but i would like to know that the united states of america has a unilateral counter-terrorism capability to deal with a revival of al qaeda in pakistan for the foreseeable future, because the one thing we know for sure, the government of pakistan is not going to do anything about the revival of al qaeda. >> i want to come to that in a moment. with respect to the surge which

came out of the decision making which you were involved in, was that a good idea. >> yes. i think so. i don't think we had much choice. >> rose: because things were so awful? >> things -- if you look at stanley mcchrystal's report, in the washington post everyone can read it, it is on their website, he says -- >> rose: not courtesy of stan mcchrystal i want you to know. >> he said we were on the verge of catastrophic defeat. he says in that report that the prisons that we were operates in afghanistan in 2002 and -- i am sorry, 2009, 2010 were actually incubators for the taliban and al qaeda and they controlled the prisons. in a counterinsurgency, if the prisons you are running are incubator for the enemy, you are in deep, deep trouble. >> rose: okay. i want to go back to afghanistan. first slip over to afghanistan.

isi. has always allowed in north waziristan a safe haven for the people who were fighting the united states and the afghan government so they could slide back and forth at will. >> that's right. and general, i have interviewed at this table say you can never win as long as they can do that. do you agree with that? >> it is awfully hard. very few countries, one generation fight the same war twice. we have done that in afghanistan. the biggest take away for me is it is a whole lot easier if you have the pakastanis helping you over throw the government in kaka bull if you to the government kabul trying to fight anin insurgency backed by the isi. >> the pakastanis took all the risks, all of the casualties, and were the strategic masters of the war, it wasn't charlie wilson's war, it was the pakastani dictators.

>> who was a great friend of charlie wilson. >> who was a great friend of charlie wilson. >> we tried to do the opposite in the last 12 years and it is very, very, very hard to do. the only solution that makes any sense is to build up an afghan army that can deal with that sanctuary for the long haul. >> rose: but you just said, which is an interesting historical point and really is, it is wonderful reading here, it is the idea that we all have -- are familiar with the idea that the soviet union came in and essentially occupied and controlled afghanistan. and conventional lower is that the afghanistan tribes, with the help of mujahedin kicked them out because they got sidewinder missiles from the united states and cia, charlie wilson played a role in that but you were saying who really kicked the russians out was the president of pakistan, a military dictator? >> that's right. >> let me put it this way, jimmy

carter and ronald reagan made the same kind of deal with the president that churchill and roosevelt made with josef stalin, we needed a bad guy on our side, and that was the bad guy we got -- hawk. >> there were consequences to that. inevitably there were going to be consequences. >> which were. >> i think jimmy carter and reagan knew there would be consequences, well if you step back and look at the whole thing, the secret war in the 1980s was a global game changer. the cost of roughly $3 billion and not a single american casualty the soviet union was defeated within six months the berlin wall fell, the warsaw packet imploded and two years later the soviet union went out of business. the cold war ended and with it. >> rose: it began though with kicking the soviet union out of afghanistan? >> i think that's right. i think that was the catalyst for it. we will never know if the soaf yell, soviet union has had not

been defeated in afghanistan,. >> rose: question will never know if somebody other than gorbachev had been head of the general secretary of the party and resisted more. >> that's right. but but we know what did what wt happened and we know they lost and the cold war came to an end and with the end of that the danger of thermonuclear war between the united states of america. >> rose: and were there lessons to be learned from that for the united states after it kicked al qaeda out or to the tall a ban? >> i think the big lesson there is you can't just walk away from afghanistan. this is a very dangerous part of the world. it seems to be a place where important things happen. because not only was it a global change never terms of the end of the cold war, we can now say 25 years later it was the start of the global jihad. >> rose: but at the same time it was often repeat bed at this media and every analyst who would come to this table, you know, if you read your history you know that you -- the afghans are so tough and so independent and so tribal, in the end they will kick you out, look what happened to the russians and

before the russians and look what happened to the united states. >> i know, i have heard it. it is called the graveyard history. the problem is it is bad history. a lot of countries have conquered afghanistan, alexander the great conquered, the upon gull, the moguls, the british actually won the second anglo afghan war that's why history is helpful, when somebody gives you these nice little slogans, you should woppedder is that really right? >> yes. exactly. and you think of competences, and then you know it is not. >> right. >> rose: okay. so then, a dictator of pakistan gets some credit in your judgment, a lot of credit. >> yes. >> rose: primary credit. >> right. >> rose: request the help of american arms, sidewinder missiles and the rest of them, kick the russians out. >> right. >> rose: then what happened to afghanistan? >> we lost interest, and what happens is there is a terrible civil war. the city of kabul was not destroyed in the waretween the new a dean and russians it was destroyed in a war between the new mujahedin and the united sts

walked away from it. the consequence of that was the rise of the taliban and in the end of the arrival of al qaeda in afghanistan and 9/11. now looking back, we can all see this. to be fair to president george bush, sr., at the time he had a pretty full plate. he had the disintegration of the soviet union, the creation of new countries like the ukraine, the liberation of eastern europe, the reunification of germany, the iraqi invasion of kuwait, afghanistan which had been number one or number 2 on reagan's priority's list went down to maybe number 50 on president bush's priority list. the consequence. >> rose: bush 41. >> bush 41 with no american attentionfto afghanistan. it can disintegrated into civil war and became a broken state. and from that emerged the taliban. >> rose: to look at the movie or to read george crow's book you get the impression this was

part of the warning and admonishment of charlie wilson. >> it was. >> rose:. >> >> we are abandoning this place and it is going to be disastrous. >> and i think charlie wilson's war, is a great book and even better movie. i think -- >> it is a little bit too much importance on a texan congressman on all of this. >> rose: but an interesting texan congressman. >> very interesting texan congressman, yes. >> rose: there is isi in pakistan and osama bin laden, tell me what you know. >> what i know for sure is that osama bin laden arrived in pakistan within a week after the soviet invasion. soviet invasion takes place on christmas eve, 1979, shows thereupon within a week or so. before in the first cia arms and money even arrive, you start -- he starts off as basically a fund raiser for the mujahedin but then he becomes what i would

call a combat engineer. he was building tunnels and underground storage facilities for the isi to assist the afghan mujahedin. he actually built one inside of afghanistan. >> rose: that was his family business in saudi arabia. >> that was the family business, he was an expert at construction, he was a real engineer. he knew what he was doing and he had access to the families huge fortune and all of their construction gear. the isi had to be intimately involved in all of that. >> rose: because of the relationship between the isi and the pakastani secret service, intelligence service and osama bin laden from the get-go. >> right. absolutely. second thing that we know for sure is the isi who introduced osama bin laden to moamar when osama bin laden came back to afghanistan. remember he left at the end of the war, he goes off to the sudan, the united states chases

him in the sudan and comes back to afghanistan, the isi is connected. third thing we know when president clinton fired tomahawk missiles after the attack in east africa, tried to kill him we know who was at that location. 20 isi officers, ten of whom were called. we know that for a fact. now, what were they doing at that location? obviously, they were getting ready to meet osama bin laden. what we don't know is -- >> rose: did he leave and turn one way rather than another way or something? >> there are all kinds of stories, he may have been there, we may have been half an hour off, we don't know. what we do know is who was there. and that is the point. the isi was there. when this connection, when this friendly relationship came to an end or if it ever came to an end is one of the biggest mysteries we still don't know. >> rose: the relationship came to an end? >> between the isi and osama bin laden. >> rose: or if it came to an end. >> if it ever came to an end, because that hideout he was in

in pakistan, where the seals found him and brought justice to him in 2011. >> rose: -- >> -- very suspicious. >> >> rose: he could not have existed like that without -- >> he was hiding in a facility less than a mile from the front door of the pakistan my equivalent of west point. >> rose: yes. >> a closed military zone. pakastani generals routinely over flew that facility in helicopters day in and day out. none of them ever saw this tall man walking around on the roof, nobody in the pakastani intelligence service ever wondered what is going on in that building. the people in the region referred to the house as the waziristan house. >> >> rose: why would they say that? >> they knew someone who was from waziristan or who had connections -- >> rose: why would they know that? >> it must have been clear to people in the neighborhood that somebody important, somebody who

had connections. >> rose: you believe this went all the way up to the chief of staff of the army? >> i know a lot about the isi, i have studied them a lot and worked with them. the isi is not a rogue institution, you do not get promoted in the isi by blowing up embassies and not telling the boss you are going to do it. if the isi knew. >> rose: they wouldn't be hiding osama bin laden without telling all the way up -- >> that would be a bad career move. >> rose: and so he had to know and lying because i have had one u.s. official after another say, sit at this table and say, well, as far as we know they didn't know. >> we have no smoking gun, that is true. there is no smoking gun, right? what do you expect you are going to find? a little button inside the hideout that said in trouble, push this button and give the general -- i don't think you are going to find that. >> but you believe general kiani knew. >> i believe so, he was general -- >> rose: if in anybody in the isi would know -- >> he would know. >> rose: the nature of the

beast? >> exactly. >> rose: doesn't say anything good about him, does it? >> no, no. >> rose: and we thought he was our -- >> pakastani generals have remarkable capacity to persuade americans that they are really on our side. >> and that includes general -- >> general musharraf to kiani many have looked in the eyes of pakastani generals and believed they were on our side. to give jimmy carter and ronald reagan credit i think they look into those eyes and knew he was on our side this week and for this objective. they didn't come to the belief that he was eternally on our side. >> rose: well, the famous, talking to, musharraf and you are with us or against us, we are going to do this and need us and if you going to do this we will do terrible things to you. >> right. and rich armitage armitage is someone i know and have great faith in and when i am sure you are either with us or against us it is a pretty powerful threat. >> rose: you know what he means, don't you?

>> exactly. but i think general musharraf looked at this and said, okay, i have to make some adjustments. i have to play the game carefully, but in time, i can go back to my. >> old tactics. >> exactly. >> in his book sway fantastic book, musharraf's memoirs should be in the fiction section of every public library. >> he said he did a war game after the armitage came to see him and concluded from this war game if pakistan and the united states went to war, india would be the biggest beneficiary, it is very revealing, i don' i donk he did a war game but it tells us that the pakastani general's first thought always is. >> rose: india? >> it is about india, how does this influence india? how does this influence our relationship with india? >> rose: kashmir has a huge impact doesn't it? >> exactly. >> rose: so back to afghanistan. so there you are. you believe that they had to know from the get-go, they had to to they when it came there because musharraf, now we

established musharraf never lies, he sat in this chair and said to me, look, he couldn't have been there for five years i know that's what you think but he was not there for five years. and i don'and i don't know whatt by that, longer, shorter? >> right after osama bin laden was killed, and musharraf pointed out to a pakastani press, oh, i remember that house, i remember jogging by it. he then had that item pulled off the internet, because it was a little bit too revealing about exactly what musharraf should or should not have known. musharraf motives are hard to understand. >> rose: this is a way off the wall for me. we know a bit about how to turn people, we know a bit about how to -- to get people for a price to come over to our side. we have done that in our history, yes? >> correct. >> how can we find somebody at

isi to say to us, they got him, he is off across from the military academy? >> because the isi regards the cia as threat number one. not only in terms of us penetrating them for information like that, but us penetrating them for most important information, where are pakistan's nuclear weapons? you know, when we went in and got osama bin laden, the reaction of most pakastani generals wasn't oh, my god. >> rose: they invaded -- >> most pakastani generals response was if they can do this, could they steal our nuclear arsenal? and of course it is apples and oranges, one person versus a couple of hundred knew nuclear weapons is a hugely different, but that was their reaction, it tells you, they regard us as the existential threat along with india. >> it is sometimes said that if, in fact, iran gets a nuclear weapon that the saudis would go

to their friend at pakastanis who they pay a lot of to, have given a lot of money to and say we need some weapons, is that your understanding of what might happen? >> certainly there is a lot of smoke about that, very close relations. there is no closer relationship than the one between saudi arabia and pakistan. prime minister sharif this week is sending in saudi arabia meeting with all of the saudi senior royals, he has lived there in exile for most of the first decade of this century. yes. i think -- i don't have proof positive, i don't have a signed contract, i don't think anyone has a signed contract, but in extremis if saudi arabia goes to pakistan and says we need nuclear weapons it is going to be pretty hard for any pakastani leader to say no. >> rose: no. >> i hear you. there is also this question. do the saudis worry a lot about

the fact that something like the arab spring could come to them? >> absolutely. when the arab spring began, king abdullah invested 13 $130 billin in buying off the saudi population. that's a lot of money. even for saudis. that tells me that he and the other royals were worried it could happen to them. and they responded in the best way they could. make sure everyone has got everything they want, try to buy everybody off. i think it worries them a lot. i think it is one of the reasons why they supported the mill think, military coup in egypt, they were the first literally within minutes to endorse the asissy government. >> and pro protest loudly about the over throw of mubarek and blaming the united states too quick to call for his resignation. and they basically are propping up the egyptian government today with billions and billions of dollars. >> and therefore the egyptian government is less dependent on the united states?

>> less dependent on the united states. >> rose: a point that they make. >> right. >> rose: every time they have a chance. >> i think the saudis were scared to death, i think they feel a little bit more comfortable now, but not a whole lot more comfortable. the middle east that surrounds them must look very dangerous, the iranian enemy, isis. >> rose: which is a sworn enemy of the saudis. >> sworn enemy, isis and syria and iraq, which islamic extremists but not the pro saudi islamic extremists, you know the guy who says he wants to be the caliph that means the king of saudi arabia is an inlegitimate -- >> he wants to be king of all of islam. >> if you are i sitting in the royal palace inyadh riyadh it ia pretty dangerous situation all around you. you asked some success, and in egypt you rolled back history, for how long?ath

or is it going okay? >> it was partially made in saudi arabia. >> rose: really? what is going to happen to the king of jordan? >> king of jordan is in a tough place. i was there a few months ago. refugee situation is staggering. >> rose: more than a million now? >> it is staggering. and there is -- you know, no likelihood that these people are going to go home any time in the next few years, maybe even longer than that. putting an enormous strain on a country which is already filled

with refugees, palestinians, this country has got more than half the population of palestinian refugees or sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of palestinian refugees it is a huge burden on the king. the one thing that i think everyone agrees about what we should do in the middle east today is make sure king abdullah in jordan stays in power, that we do everything we can po help him, spigots of economic assistance need to be as open as they possibly can be to keep the little abdullah in power. >> rose: to give him the capacity to keep his people on his side. >> and manage through this crisis. >> rose: right. >> absolutely critical. >> they have a lot of respect in washington, don't they? >> i think king abdullah has a lot of respect and it is bipartisan respect. you know, -- >> rose: which is interesting because of in this fellow, the legendary, you know, lion of jordan. >> right. i mean talk about big shoes to

fill. >> rose: exactly. that's my point. they said oh he is no king hussein, but he has the admiration of people. >> when his father died in 1999 i went to the funeral, and we talked with king abdullah, president clinton and his team talked with king abdullah and looked like a scared young man, inheriting a lot of trouble, with many, many enemies, he hadn't expected this, remember his father only changed the line of succession. >> rose: in the last week or so. >> in the last week or so i think in looking back on it, 15 years later, his performance has been very, very impressive. >> rose: and u.s. is vitally interested in him maintaining power. >> absolutely. >> rose: now, i was in -- as you may know. >> right. i saw your interview. >> rose: what do you think of cha lead. >> khaled is a very determined man. >> rose: only because of king hussein is he living today

because the israeli put something in his ears that made him going into a coma. >> benjamin netanyahu tried to assassinate him, kill him. >> rose: that was back in the nineties. >> back in the nineties. i was working for president clinton when the phone call came in from king hussein saying i need your help right away. israelis have done something in my capital city, which is inexcusable. they have tried to kill a guest inside my country. clinton called up bee bee, bee bee said reluctantly, yes, we did it because the whole team that carried it out had been captured by the jordanians and he agreed in the end to send over the serum that saved his life. >> rose: is that because king hussein called bee bee or he knew the israelis well? >> or is it because president clinton called bibi and said get that -- >> probably both. >> rose: get that serum over there. probably both i think clinton's call was critical on

this. i think clinton's call showed bibi he was really in a tough place. >> rose: he had reached too far. >> and his next choice after this use he fired the head of the mossad that carried out the operation which is ironic because the mossad didn' didn'tt to do it from the get-go. >> so what about this. what does hamas want? >> hamas wants to survive in gaza and wants to come out of this war having taken everything israel can throw at it and still be standing. >> rose: and therefore become once again more prominent in the arab world and in the palestinian world. >> and most importantly in the palestinian world, to show that they are -- what they call themselves the resistance, and that fatah and palestinian authority are collaborators. that's what they want. that's what they want to show at the end of all of this. and it is a terrible tragedy, because so many ga stanes and so

gazans and israel lis are living in a hell today .. >> and i never quote understand, i said to him, you know, they came there and then the israelis came to you and we are leaving, we are giving it to you, we are going to take these settlers out which is no easy thing to do and we are going to hand it right back to you. this was ariel sharon. >> right. >> rose: and he is probably the only person who could have done that. >> was the only person who could do it, absolutely. >> rose: and then they just say, they throw it away. did they throw it away because they had real grievances. >> they have grievances. >> rose:. >> they had grievances then as well. >> rose: in other words they gave it to them but they left it very difficult for them to -- >> but i think the bigger mistake here, in hindsight which is always much easier. >> rose: yes. >> is unilateral withdrawal was a mistake. sharon should have negotiated a withdrawal with the palestinian authority in which the palestinian authority got credit

for this. >> rose: i hear you. >> by doing it unilaterally he just undermined. >> rose: he didn't want to wait. >> he didn't want to wait. he didn't like the palestinian authority. >> rose: that's true. so what is going to happen in gaza. >gaza? >> it will get worse before -- >> rose: how bad? >> it could mean israel reoccupies, in effect, the gaza strip. it may never say it is doing that but if the government -- if the israelis defense forces stay where they are today they will be occupying about half of the gaza strip. >> rose: and they believe they may have to do that because they want to fight hamas once and for all is that the goal? >> what they say. >> rose:. >> they want to eliminate the tunnels. >> rose: i understand that. but what do they mean? >> they would like to see hamas collapse. but that is dangerous too, because who is going to take hamas's place? >> more radical element already. is it impossible for hamas and the palestinian authority to form a palestinian government

that is not dedicated to the over throw of i see real and believe it is possible to live in a two stateside by side solution? >> i believe that at the end of the day, the solution to the arab israeli conflict has been staring us in the face since camp david back in 20thousand. >> rose: bill clinton's -- >> bill clinton's and the clinton parameters that emerged out of the end of it. and that is .. basically what you have laid out, a two-state solution, along the lines of the 1967 borders. >> rose:. >> and some minor jams. >> rose: some definition of right of return at work. >> right. the right of return will be primarily to the west bank of gaza. it has been staring us in the face now for well over 15 years. it is a question of political will. it is increasingly clear -- >> rose: on both sides. >> >> rose: to take the risk and take the other, take the risk and trust the other side but

verify? >> it is increasingly clear to me that political will will probably not generate from generate from within the region, it is going to take the united states in a very tough series of negotiations to provide the political will. >> rose: and could it be aided by the arab league or some arab group? >> there are a lot of people who can help, whether they will or not is another question. there are a lot of people who can help. >> rose: what is, why is qatar supporting us? >> qatar is a very unusual state. >> rose: you are telling me. >> qatar, foreign policy can basically be explained by a rivalry with saudi arabia. a rivalry in which it is completely embald. >> rose: yes. >> qatar is a tiny little city-state. >> rose: right. >> and saudi arabia is a big country and home of the two holiest places in islam. but qatar doesn't want to be told by saudi arabia how to do its business, and it has enough

money that it can spite the saudis and do whatever it want to do and it has become a habit and now they like to spite the saudis, the saudis are anti-muslim brother the brotherd they will be the opposite. >> rose: plus they created al jazeera. >> they created al jazeera and behave the united states 0 a crucial military base in the region. >> rose: so they are playing both sides all the time. >> all the time. >> rose: does that make them smart? >> it makes them clever, whether it makes them smart, i don't know but it makes them very, very clever. from the stalled difficult standpoint, qatar is the village that got out of control. >> rose: yes. >> that's what my saudi friends tell me. >> rose: it is a village that got out of control so what are they prepared to do about the village out of control? >> they have been pretty tough on the qatar. >> they you the saudi ambassador, by their standard this is is tough play but they are not -- >> rose: i can tell you they are talking all the time. the week i was there. >> they all talk. they may be doing something else. it is very interesting that

qatar's bid to host the world cup soccer has now been the subject of all of these revelations. >> rose: of corruption. >> of corruption. i wonder where all of those revelations are coming from. >> rose: do you think it is a neighbor? >> i don't know, i don't know but it wouldn't shock me. >> it wouldn't shock me at all. >> rose: and so they support hamas just to spite the rest of the neighbors or because they want some kind of islamist street cred. >> that's an important factor as well. it is known as the only arab country which it is today, actively supporting hamas. the qatar is getting a lot of credit on the street. they are actually supporting the palestinians who are fighting. >> rose: right. and dying. >> and dying. >> rose: innocent dying. >> right. >> israel. do you believe that they want a two-state solution and do you

believe they really want the best interests of the palestinians or do they like the situation now about they just want to play that out? >> i think most -- >> rose: many believe the last. >> i think most israelis. >> i am talking about the people in power. >> oh, the people in power? i think benjamin netanyahu and his government was quite content with the situation and felt that if they could just manage it, they should keep it where it is. bb is not an enthusiastic supporter of the two state solution. >> rose: even though he made a vow during the obama administration. >> only after his arm had been wrenched behind his back. >> rose: yes. >> so they are prepared just to carry it out? >> >> suppose you had bb on the phone did as you were in the room with clinton. wouldn't you tell him it is in

your national security interests to solve this problem? >> i would tell him it is in israel's national interests. >> rose: yes not his, israel's. >> to find a solution that strengthens the pal sinnians who want to make a deal with you. >> rose: right. and you figure it it out, mr. prime minister how to do that. i am certainly willing to give you my advice but that ought to be your prime objective out of this whole thing. >> rose: your national -- and i think rabin believed this, the national security interests with israel, obviously he hated going to the white house and shaking yasser arafat's hand that's why he did it. that's why camp david did. >> the last of the israelly security service has said publicly that bb has failed to focus on the real issue facing israel and that's the palestinian issue. he focuses on the iran issue, to divert israeli opinion. in is a man who spent hours and hours and hours in meetings with the prime minister over many, many years and i think he

probably has a right has it right. >> let me understand he focuses on iran to divert attention from the palestinian issue he. >> right. >> rose: he said iran is a real enemy and nuclear weapons would be the real threat. >> the real problem israel confronts and i think obvious to thinl watching tv today is its relationship with the palestinians, there aren't 1,000 miles away, but are next door. israel is and the palestinians have to find a way to live with each other, otherwise -- >> rose: and economically vibrant pal sign next to israel. a strong economic trade, strong bonds of that kind is the best thing that could possibly hand for israelis long-term national security. >> exactly. exactly. >> how long do you think it will take for it to happen? >> >> a and are you pessimistic and is it not -- is time not on

israel's side because of it? >> if you look at the development of al qaeda's reach, the idea, i don't think time is on israel's side. the idea of al qaedaism that jihad is the only solution to the problems of islam. >> rose: is a growing -- >> is a growing idea. you see it in iraq, you see it in syria, you see it in yemen. five years ago, you department see al qaedaism in syria, you didn't see it in egypt. now we see it in egypt. i think those -- >> rose: and it is growing. >> those trends are very disturbing. if you are someone who cares about the survival and security of the state of israel. >> but it is also a threat to the security of a lot of places isn't it? >> absolutely, absolutely. but target number one osama bin laden, from everything he said in his entire career, is the, at

the end of the day, when we have defeated the americans, then we will move on israel, that's the target number one. >> rose: well, he wanted to defeat the americans he wanted to drive them out of -- >> >> rose: that was his idea. >> osama bin laden basically took what he did or what he was a part of in winning the war against the soviets in afghanistan in the 1980s and said, let's do the same thing to the americans. we will encourage them to come into afghanistan, and then we will fight a guerilla war against them, sooner or later, they will be exhausted and defeated and go home. he didn't realize he was going to get a bonus that the americans were not only going to go into afghanistan but go into iraq and then he would have two quagmires to bog the united states down in. fortunately, especially in afghanistan, we were able to find afghans who wanted to be on our side. that's the big difference between the soviet car and the american war. in the soviet war, the vast

majority of afghans were on the side of the mujahedin, 90 percent in this war the vast majority of afghans are on our side. at least they have been up until now. >> rose: but is this the most alarming new thing you see on the world front now which is this rise of islamism in so many places or you might not call it islamism or radical jihaddism, not islamism, jihaddism a very important point to make, jihaddism, ask that the most vexing challenge to america? >> >> it is not a state. >> right. it is vexing in two very dangerous ways. al qaedaism or what i call al qaeda 3.0, the third generation of al qaeda is a threat to us directly in terms of attacks on the united states homeland. the national counter-terrorism center already has raise downward departure alarm that tt all of these westerners going to iraq and syria are sooner or

later going to come back and just like the volunteers who went to ago afghanistan in the 1980s they are going to come home with an agenda, and it is not just going to be to the old battle gus new battles ahead, that what concerns me number one. number 2 is that the global jihaddist in pakistan which are under pressure now from the american drone operations are the most dangerous at the end of the day. because what they want to do is provoke a war between two nuclear weapon states, india and pakistan. and that, to me, is the worst possible outcome of all of the foreign policy -- >> rose: why would they want to do that? >> because groups like -- that attacked mumbai see india as an artificial creation and they want to restore the mogul empire. there is, they are as crazy as this caliphate in iraq but more dangerous, because we are talking about playing with

nuclear weapons. >> rose: have we come close to them somehow being able to steal or get a nuclear weapon? i mean clearly they would have enough money to buy one. >> it certainly is a vexing issue. i think if you look at the revelations that we got from snowden about what america's top intelligence priorities are, if you look at that paper. >> rose: what does it say? >> it says that pakistan's nuclear weapons and the security of those nuclear weapons are among the top three or four intelligence priorities in the entire world. >> do whatever we can to stop that from, to make them secure. helping. >> helping the pakistan miss make them secure but of course the pakastanis really don't want our help because they are convinced that any help we give them in securing their nuclear weapons is actually an effort to clandestinely find out where the nuclear weapons are and they are probably right about that. >> rose: why is it they won't let us talk to aq kahn.

>> aq kahn didn't pirate nuclear nuclear, nuclear material all around the world by himself. he had the assistance of the pakastani army. he was able to fly around the world on a pakastani air force jets, you know. >> rose: and sell stuff. >> and sell stuff and have it delivered. the last time i checked on expedia you can't get a pakastani air force jet to deliver you or stuff for you. pakastani military was intimately involved in everything he was doing, a lot of pakastani politicians, including the late bhutto were intimately involved. >> rose: bhutto was involved in which way? >> was involved in the early negotiations with north korea on exchanging nuclear secrets in return for missile parts. she even admits it in her memoirs. >> rose: memoirs. >> if mr. kahn was on your show and told you the truth, it would

be highly embarrassing for the government of pakistan, and for many, many pakastani officials. >> rose: yet he is a national hero in pakistan? >> >> rose:. >> because he gave them nuclear power. >> the father of the nuclear power. the only muslim country that has a nuclear weapon. >> rose: who is most likely to get it next? iran? >> iran is closest by far. >> do you think they will get it? >> i this think is a chance for this deal, because i think seven parties to this deal would prefer a deal to nuclear car, g 5 plus one and the iranians. >> rose: well of course they don't want it. >> iranians don't want -- but they are going to put a very hard deal on the table. what concerns me is that with the ukraine situation, we are going to see the russians fall off the wagon here. >> rose: it didn't happen but in looking back and it is one of those what if questions supposed if president carter said to the

ayatollah i am going to level tehran and we have the nuclear weapons to do it and i realize i am sacrificing great americans, but i am prepared to do it because this is -- you are setting a precedent this is embarrassing, boston than embarrassing, you have acted a declaration of war and we are going to win this war and we realize there will be casualties but you will be one of them. what would have happened? >> i suspect he would have called our bluff. >> rose: you do? >> because. >> because he was a religious fanatic? >> right. but. >> rose: do we have information to believe that or aware of information to believe that? >> i worked on that problem for 444 days. there was, there was pretty strong information that khamanei was prepared to sacrifice his country. >> rose: boy, what kind of information do you have? >> intelligence information from people around him. >> rose: around him, in other words you know people who knew him. >> who knew him but i will give you a court point.

>> rose: okay. >> when jimmy carter was told that the iranians were seriously thinking about putting the hostages on trial as war criminals and spies, he sent that message to khomeini and if you do this, there will be war, and they never went on trial. so -- >> but i mean that seems to me to be contradictory. >> i am afraid my answer is contradictory on that one. my gut tells me khamanei would have can called our bluff at least in the early days of the whole thing but when carter did send them a very, very tough message i think in august of, august, september of 1980, they never went on trial. >> and do you know any other way they could have gotten those hostages out other than the way they tried? >> no. and the desert one tragedy. >> rose: yes.

>> -- was of all the possible out comes of that mission, much better than some of the disasters that could have happened later on. >> rose: like? >> had we got ten into tehran, getting those hostages and the commandos all the way outside of iran would have been a really difficult mission. that is why bob gates when he looked at the mission to kill osama bin laden, his mind was just preoccupied with desert 1. desert one was a real, real, real long shot. and it failed early on, it could have failed even more catastrophically on the streets of tehran. >> he was in the cia at that time wasn't he when carter was president. >> that's right. >> rose: i mean the interesting thing about that, is that what he wanted to do as i understand it from him he was just prepared to go in and bomb the hell out of the building and take them out that way and not know whether they were there or not, that was a gutsy call by

the president. >> it was a very gutsy call, it was a remarkable call. >> rose: where would you have been on that? >> i think he did exactly the right thing. >> would you have advised him to do that. >> i would have advised him. >> and if bob gates says you don't know how hard this is. this could turn out like desert one? what would you have said then? >> i have a long history of gates telling me i am wrong about something or right about something. >> rose: you would have been afd"uz -- yes. >> i think the world of bob gates but i think the president did the right thing. one more thing i would say about that call. when he decided to extend the seal team in, send the seal team in he made the decision not to tell the pack zanies and when you stand back, think about it for aine, by 2011, two presidents, bush and obama had given, given pakistan $25 billion, billion dollars in aid since september 11th, why? to fight al qaeda. and at the moment of truth when

the president of the united states was told this is where he is, he decided he couldn't trust the government. >> rose: even though they gave them $25 billion. >> $25 billion and we continue. >> what if we hadn't given them the $25,000,000,000.000000000. >> 25 billion was, in my view, a worthwhile effort in seeing if we could bribe pakistanis. and we know the answer. >> rose: we could. >> we couldn't. so my response today would be we tried it, it was worth a try, but don't keep trying to bribe them. it is not going to work. >> rose: and did you believe this mission could work? >> rose: i mean, in other words, 0 general mccraven said to me in interviews he, i said to the president, this is what we do. we send helicopters into polices and pick up people and bring them home that's what we do and the president said, okay. >> and i think that ten years of warfare in iraq and afghanistan

have honed the capabilities of our forces to a place flat is unique in the world. >> rose: when are you writing your memoirs. >> when can you get clearance? >> >> a lot i can't talk about so it wouldn't wouldn't be much point in that. >> thanks for coming here. >> my pleasure. >> what we won, america's secret war in afghanistan, 1979 to 1989, which we have talked about. bruce riedel, thank you, pleasure. >> pleasure. >> rose: thank you for joining us, see you next time. for more about this program and early episodes visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

funding for charlie rose has been provided by the coca-cola company, supporting this program since 2002. american express and charles schwab. additional funding >> and by bloomberg. a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide.

>> the following kqed production was produced in high definition. [ ♪ music ] it's all about licking your plate. >> the food was just fabulous. >> i should be in psychoanalysis for the amount of money i spend in restaurants. >> i had a horrible experience. >> i don't even think we were at the same restaurant. >> and everybody