arch. welcome to the program. we begin this evening with roger koen the columnist for the "new york times" and his new book about his parents called "the girl from human street." "my book is partly about belonging. where do you belong? and i think after love belonging is a very basic human instinct. it's right up there in the top three or four human urges. you want to belong. rose: we conclude with robert worth, gregory johnson and matthew waxman and assessment of yemen and libya. >> it's really, really difficult for the americans to get involved in a positive way. and i think it's particularly difficult because we don't have open eyes in the region. i mean we have scaled back at almost all of the embassies in the middle east. we have less ability to see what's going on there. >> makes us dependent in many

countries on -- for information for basic intelligence about what's happening. rose: roger cohen and a look at the future in libya and yes, ma'am em. funding for "charlie rose" is provided by the following: >> 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. rose: roger koen is here, a columnist for the new york ties. his new book is called "the girl

from human street." it explores the nature of modern jewish identity. i am pleased to have him back at this table. so just thinking about this before you made the commitment to do it, what goes through your mind? is it the imperative to do it? is it you have to convince yourself to do it because you know it's not going to be easy? what is it? >> well on the one side, there was the imperative because there were mysteries in my family that i wanted to explore. on the other hand, doing something so personal charlie, is always very difficult. i think if my editor john siegel at knopf hadn't pushed me i might have shied away from it. i was going to write a book about iran. and he said that's a little depressing. why don't you write a book about suicide loss, displacementes rose: the story of your family? >> and of love. rose: it moves from lithuania to britain to israel?

>> yeah rose: and the united states? >> i became an american citizen. the family has been on the move for four generations. here in the u.s., we think of immigration in positive terms an opportunity. but, of course, immigration is also loss. you are leaving something behind. and my mother is the girl from human street. she was born on human street in a little mining town in south africa, and she was plucked out in the 1950s from this tight-knit jewish community in south africa and plunked down in post-world london, with my dad, a hard driving young physician. it was too much for her. she was a transplant who didn't take. and she fell apart. rose: do you say, i am an american? and then they say where are you from? what do you say. >> i say i am an american. i grew up in south africa and britain. i spent most of my upbringing in britain. i had a wonderful education there.

my dad did very well. i had every privilege. but a bit like my mother something didn't quite gel and i feel the united states and south africa are more intimately tied at this point to my identity than britain. i think it had something to do with the difficulty for a jewish family in britain, the phillip roth has this observation that when jews are alluded to in britain, voices drop a bit. i remember my mother in a restaurant pointing to another family and say, you know, darling, that family is jewish. i said mom, why are you whispering? and she said i am not whispering but they are jewish. we were koens. we didn't hide who we were. for me, coming to new york, you can live as a jew in this way. you can live that identity ex uberently rather than the bargain in britain always seemed to me to be: you keep a little -- you are discrete and

make your way. you choose -- the jews are very successful. it's probably the best place in europe today for jews to be. rose: how many anti-semitism is there in europe. >> it's growing, definitely growing. i was correspondent in germany from '98 to 2001. so that's what? 15 years ago. if anybody had said to me then, charlie that you would have people in the streets of germany saying, jews are pigs as they were at the time of the gaza war last summer, i would have said you are crazy. that's never going to happen again in germany. we have had jews shot in a myselfem in brussels four jews killed in the kosher supermarket in france. and it's not an easy situation. my book is ptly about belonging. where do you belong? and i think after love belonging is a very basic human instinct. it's right up there in the top 3 or 4 human urges. you want to know what home is. rose: the search for identity? >> that's right.

absolutely. and you have a very alienated muslim community right now in europe. and you have an increasingly fearful jewish community. rose: what did you think of prime minister netanyahu's investigation to come to israel at the time of the paris assassinations? >> to be in paris. rose: to say -- >> 0 i see. yes. what he said in paris. well, i think perhaps prime minister netanyahu has a tendency to meddle. he is on the campaign trail. there is an election in israel march 17th. i think it was a genuine investigation. any jewish person can go to israel. i hope conditions don't reach such a point that jews en masse

start leaving france. i think french jewish identity in the diaspora is an important part of jewish identity rose: you write about the black sun of displacement. >> i think the bright star is new possibility, and the black sun is displacement. my mother as i said, collapsed when i was nearly three years old. she had what was then called post-psychosis, now called post-partm depression and she disappeared from my life. i can't prove scientifically that her collapse was due to having lost her roots, lost her anchors being taken away and plunked down somewhere unfamiliar but the more -- later in her life, she suffered from manic depression. she was bi-policyaver and she always craved south africa. she always craved the sun. she wanted to return. when i found a box in the attic

of my parents' place a farm in wales. a place my mother hated. always windy, never sun, the opposite what she wanted rose: she wanted thesun of south africa. >> my doctor's precise annotations. rose: you discovered my mother's suicide attempts. i did both times road you read them? >> i read them and i copied them out and i thought about them endlessly. that's a very substantial part of the reason why i had to write the book. and i thought i could tell an intimate story of one person's breakdown and a wider story of jewish migration during the 20th century. not just jewish. it's "the girl from human street." i think this is a very human condition these days. we are on the move. and a lot of people are uncertain where they belong what their true home is. how do they build community? how do they feel part of

something? rose: has the book helped you reconcile her experience? >> it has, charlie. i feel at this point i have done everything i could to discover what happened to my mother. i now know something i never knew because it was never talked about, that on the eve of my third birthday, she was in a psychiatric institution having electroshock treatment. this was more or less when sylvia platt had it in the mid 1950s, more or less the images portrayed in "one flew over the cockoo's nest. "at the time, i knew it psychecally but i feel like i know where i came from as well because when i grew up, i was sitting in westminster abbey most mornings because i was going to westminster school and i had no idea that my grandmother came from the lithuanian shettle. this, knowing where i came from knowing what happened to my mother has given me acceptance. i guess that would be the word.

i think you need ac-septemberance to get to peace rose: how did they explain the absences to you? >> they didn't. they didn't. there was silence. there was silence in the family just as there was silence about the lithuanian past, and i don't think that was that unusual in the post -- rose: when you sat down to write the book, you sat down to write the book, between that moment and to do the research to find out everything you could and today, what is the most powerful thing you have learned that may make you at least at ease from the knowledge? >> i think the most powerful single thick was finding through britain's freedom of information act my mother's medical records from the 1950s which enabled me to know that. but there were also extraordinary discoveries like my great uncle, it turned out, had been a rabbi. during world war i, he was the chaplain as it was called, to

jewish soldiers who were fighting in flanders and elsewhere. he was going around the battlefields of europe giving last rites to jewish soldiers and more than 2000 jews were killed in the british forces and i found his dooifshingz. he quotes "has the house of israel now done enough to demonstrate it's loyalty to crown and empire?" and everywhere rose: the experience in world war ii? >> exactly. and i guess the book has strengthened my identification with israel, with the jewish homeland because i feel that my family's experience demonstrates without question that jews need a homeland. jews need a homeland ideally not built on the stateletsness of over people. that's why i am a zinist who believes in a two-state holyland. rose: israel.

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

it was when he went to see at the end when all was lost and the appeal he made to began's grandchildren. >> yeah rose: he said, there is one more chance but mainly because of human reasons. >> yes. rose: my grandchildren. >> that's the thing the future grandchildren. big speeches invoking the olive groves, 1948, the past. >> doesn't put food on the table. when they went into those talks with one bomb bottom line. he was never going to give up the settlement in the sinai. what did he do? he gave up the settlement. rose: it did not destroy israel? >> and there has not been another war between israel and egypt rose: you dedicated it to your father and to the memory of your mother. what did he contribute to this story? >> well, he kept that box in the attic, and he knows i am a writer. and i don't think -- rose: he dmooul you would have

access to it. >> i don't think he kept all of that believing that i would never see it. he encouraged me to write the book. scan he wrote a wonderful letter to me i quote at the end of my mother's life about her spirit and about how he and his human frailty had done his best to cherish and preserve her. he had another relationship with his survival mechanism. but you know what, charlie? i tried to put myself in his shoes going through the mental anguish of my mother in the 20 years of his life and how he tried to survive. the mafrming lasted 49 years. we are frail. i certainly did not come away thinking i could pass any kind of judgment. i think like everyone, both my parents made mistakes. maybe there could have been a better outcome but i dedicated truck driver to my father because -- to my father because i know he loved me.

rose: you did not know the extent of his lithuanian origins. >> not at all. i knew nothing of it. it was gone. we were in a new tral zone-- neutral zone. we didn't have a christmas tree. yes have a bar mitzah. he hated his own. he thought it was for the best. but i think people, people need an identity. they need something to at least react against rose: do they need memory? >> they do. memory is absolutely fundamental. without it, we don't know who we are. it is very volatile. every war i have covered, in a way, is about memory. it's about who came first to the land? who built the synagogue? we were here before you. in bosnia it was about with the ottoman turks and what they had done to the serbs and so on. we need memory, but we also need the historical research that brings us close to truth

rose: you quote from lewis lewis carroll. it's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. >> yeah. of course, memory is intimately tied to the future. rose: in some ways, it's a guide to the future. >> that's right rose: and paul filon: set your life at memory at half mast and from the beloved country when people go to johannesburg they do not come back. >> south africa was deep in my parents. it gets back to this issue of belonging. i think my father hated apartheid. that's why they left but part of them never came back from johannesberg johannesberg. certainly part of my mother. rose: what was it? >> she was part of something. she was part of a tight-knit

jewish world in south africa where she felt comfortable. she felt at ease. i think one reason i am so drawn to south africa, when i close my eyes and think of my mother. i see her in south africa, she is laughing with one of her floppy sun hats. when i see her in england, it's either -- i don't know how much you have encountered -- manic depression is a devastating state because in certain moods, you are endlessly active making plans, buying things, selling things and it's followed by complete inertia. usually in the manic phase, you buy a ticket on concord to go to new york as my mother once did or leave her possessions at the time of the ira and the security came out and said what's this and she said i am a magistrate. how dare you say something like that. they put her in a room. they locked her up for a while and she was fiercely indignant. you are out of control so when you are in the depressed phase,

you have a lot of guilt about what you have done in the manic phase which is why i feel so strongly. my mother was treated basically with drugs. she was not -- she didn't have much psychotherapy. i think you need both. and i think the big argument is whether these conditions are endogenous. you have a certain genetic tendency. i think it was a combination with my mother. rose: you said some interesting things about your jewish hair heritage. you said, for example, my jewishness does not believe in the notion that there is a lib biblical right to real estate. >> there isn't, i don't think. there are plenty of people in israel. i make a distinction between the zinism i believe in and the messianic believes all of the holy land between the mediterrrainian and jordan river was duded to the jews mel in me

melinnial ago. the fact is however there are millions of palestinians who live there. we as jews if there is one condition we know more than any other it is of being strangers in strange lands. and jewish ethics tell us to take the stranger in. and demon -- dom inyun over another people is core rosives. if we can get it as distant as it seems to be. rose: i assume it is good news to discover your family. >> it is. i have already had many messages and letters. you know i think mental illness is the last taboo. i think it's bet tory talk about it. that's one fundamental reason i wrote the book. and again i think there is a message, also of stoism,

payable, sadness. it is a book that involves my cousin in israel was also bi-polar. it's reaappeared at every generation. she did commit suicide. there is sadness but to me, it's been a journey toward knowledge, acceptance and greater peace. rose: turning from that to political life, you said recently in a column: i've never felt more uneasy about the state of the world. the rule book has been torn up. >> yes. bad times, charlie. last year was terrible. i wrote a column for the great unravelling. we hint had the annexation of a part of the european state in europe since 1945. that's what president putin did in ukraine. we have a severe depression really some parts are e mensching. that's combined with large

alienated muslim communities fearful jews, this parable ideology that keeps matastisizing that now calls itself "islamic state." it's 35 years since from iran came the fatawa against rushdie and now among the sunni arabs we are seeing the harshest expresses of this ideology of hatred. we saw it in the united states withdrawing, i felt for a long time that president obama was not being strong enough in syria when there was all of the talk of hitting singles, maybe doubles. we don't have a strategy for isis. when he was in asia, i didn't feel the commitment to the defense of japan was 100% clear. rose: today, you do? >> i feel the president has had a good run more recently wellith

cuba. rose: a bold stroke. >> a bold stroke. yeah. i believe he is serious about trying to do a deal with iran, which i think would be a good thing if it's a deal that really makes sure the iranian -- rose: saudi arabia doesn't think so. he is over there courting them like crazy. >> yeah, but nevertheless, the saudis are going to have to get used to the fact that the iranian nuclear program cannot be dismantled. so, the best thing you can do with it is lock it in a corner reduce the number of centrifuges. it's good for israel. it's good for the region. rose: they believe -- if the royal family believes that the iranians have a nuclear either proximate or intact, how long do you think it will take them to get nuclear weapons from pakistan? >> a few billion bucks. it's not a problem.

i don't think -- i don't think iran is going to go. rose: out of their own choice? >> out of their own choice and we are going to force them not to. rose: how are we going to do that? >> like i said, if there is an agreement that strictly limits the amount of enrichment that's going on, then they can't make a bomb and if they do not accept that agreement, if we have solid evidence -- which we don't have at the moment. at the moment we don't actually think they are trying to produce a bomb. i don't think any u.s. president can accept a nuclear-armed iraq. i think they are clever enough not to take that final step and that they will see that it's in their interest ultimately to try to make a deal. the big gamble for hama -- khomeni, when iran comes close to the world, the theocracy will

be weaker. they want to be close to the world. so, a bit like president putin who makes the calculus that anting anism with the west is more in his interest than getting close to the west. the situation in russia is lousy for many people. rose: you are saying it's more in the political -- if he wants to shore up his own political support, the more antagonistic he is to the west, the better off he is? >> correct. i think that's why there has been a 180 degree turn in moscow that took us all ununawares. we thought when president punishment said that the break-up of the soviet union was the greatest geo strategic tragedy was maybe half a joke. he couldn't be that serious. but, no he wants to rebuild not the soviet union but he wants to rebuild reportsrose the sphere of influence? >> yeah. dominated by moscow and ukraine, as we have seen, he is not prepared to have -- to allow it even to make a trade agreement

rose: or join the mean union? >> i am not sure the european union is ready for any new members right now. i think things are pretty difficult. rose: is the idea of ukraine getting in nato a dead issue? >> i think it's in abeyance for a long time rose: you say modi and put inare more compelling leaders than obama. they do not have the power obama has. but they have the aura the flux and global power has induced a dangerous moment. >> yeah. i think there is a vacuum much more of a vacuum than at any other time in my life. and without u.s. guarantees unless our treaties really mean something, look, what if president putin starts having designs on the baltics, which are members of nato. we need to be firm. syria has been a disaster.

we could be here a long time discussing syria, but whatever -- inaction is a decision. rose: it is. >> inaction is a decision. the president's decision in syria was inaction. when he settled at a red line, he walked away from it. he should not have done that in my view. he did it, and here we are. and i don't think -- rose: even though some will argue, that the deal that came out of it eliminated the chemical weapons, you know was a good deal. >> we paid a huge price for it. the rehabilitation of bashar al assad, the strengthening of putin, the loss of the credibility of the word of the president of the united states and of the american power rose: on the red line? >> yeah. that is a huge price to pay for getting rid of chemical weapons which is clearly a good thing but it came at an unacceptable price. rose: they were all coming together in saudi arabia after the death of abdullah.

do saudis worry more about iran than anything else? >> they do. they worry a lot about iran reportsrose the sunni-shiia thing in part? >> you know like everyone who is depressed about the prospects of a two-state peace but he was saying every arab nation, egypt, saudis, all of the gulf states they have iran much more on their mind in a way than israel. and i think that's true. you know the saudis talk a good line about lots of things. i think in the end the saudis depend heavily on their alliance with the united states. they are trying to maneuver as best they can to not -- what they are worried about is if there were a breakthrough with iran that -- and with the changing politics of oil, that

the united states will not feel as compelled to be as close to the saudis as before. and i think they are manoeuvring to try to ensure that for all of the criticism of the united states, the alliance with the u.s. remains solid and we don't see the kind of reworking of american alliances in the middle east that would come from an iran deal. rose: up until last summer there was a seemingly pragmatic middle of the road former generals and politicians who claim it is impossible to resolve the conflict. let's think about conflict management. i think last summer the third gaza war in six years taught israelis what conflict management looks like. this may be a useful lesson. >> definitely. definitely. that's the fundamental point. rose: is that a minority voice or a voice that reflects leadership by people?

>> i think there is a widespread sense in israel the last gaza war served no purpose. 2,300 people basically died for nothing. so there is an awareness. you say status quo and imagine something peaceful. but the status quo in israel is the status quo of conflict. every now and again, there are going to be these explosions. i think israelis look there is a shelf life for a leader in any democracy. prime minister netanyahu has been in and out of power for nine years. i think many -- rose: the longest serving prime minister since bengurion? >> i think so. many are dissatisfied. israelis want to be sure that whoever leads the country in a crisis, the leader will be strong. i think what the leader of the labor party has to do if it's

going to win power is reassure israelis that he is capable of that. but, he has a very seriousserious -- rose: that's what yet z /-* yitzak rabin said. >> they are serious about a two-state peace. they see israel cannot remain jewish and democratic if things continue to go in the current direction. i have never had the impression that any real commitment real commitment -- i am talking about what prime minister netanyahu says to his wife at night the way he talks about two states. i would be inclined to think he talks much more of oh, honey, i managed to kick the canal down the road for another couple of years but i wasn't able to make progress toward a two-state peace. i never thought he was certainserious about it rose: "a girl from human street. ghost of memory." thank you for coming.

>> thank you charlie. rose: back in a moment. stay with us. four years have passed since the arab springan. popular uprisings had raised hope for democratic transition in the region. western governments took a role in generally. both are considered fail states. yesterday an attack left eight people dead and civil war between various faxes continue. in yemen, houthi reynolds have taken control of the presidential palace. al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula is strengthening its stronghold in the south. from wart, robert worth, a fellow gregory johnson a buzzfeed writer and author of "the last refuge: yemen and al-qaeda and air abe i can't" a professor at columbia university. robert, let me begin with you. tell me what we know about what happened in libya and what does it mean? >> well, a group claiming to be

the libyan branch of isis carried out the attack toe corinthia hotel. it's unclear exactly who this group is. but the credibility of the claim seems to be pretty high because they announced it just as the attack was beginning. and it killed a number of people, and it raises questions about how wide the sway of this group is. in a sense, it doesn't really matter whether it was centrally planned from israel's -- isis's headquarters or an affiliated group in libya. this group has tremendous -- its idea has tremendous resonanswer across the region. you have people with various different jihadi faxes allowing themselves with isis who seem to be inspired with the same vehicle rose: where else do you see it happening? >> the sinai peninsula and another faction that is if not part of and allied with isis,

you have a group that claims to act on behalf of isis in yemen even from the eastern edge of the islamic world, various groups pledging allegiance to isis rose: "the economist" wrote on january 10th, western powers which assisted in gadaffi's downfall have been conspicuous. they have watched from the sidelines as things have gone from promising to preturning to bad to worse. president obama washed his hands of libya after the islamists killed his ambassador chrissteins inbengsbengs in september, 2012 ". do you agree with that? >> i think there is some truth to that, that the powers that intervened in libya and assisted with the overthrow, assisted local rebels with the overdloe of gadaffi -- overthrow of gadaffi has not brought the sense of urgency of putting libya back together. libya has at this point broken

in at least two, two major camps that are competing for legitimacy as the proper government. >> that haepz created a vacuum with extremist groups proceed claiming to be a local branch of isis are able to -- are able to operate pretty freely rose: other than local malitias and local groups, have other people, other powers of the nation states tried to come in and take advantage? >> i would say less come in and take advantage but a number of regional powers have chosen sides and they are worried about spill spillover effects. so you have in libyaa essentially a civil war between an elected government, a once elected government that has had

to flee the capital it has moved. in tripoli, you have another entity claiming to be the proper government aligned mostly with islamist factions. and other powers in the region. other powers in the arab world are worried about how that balance of power is going to play out eternally, and they are supporting one side. >> what's the un doing. >> the un is trying -- u n. is trying to propose and cultivate a political process. just this week in geneva, there was a u.n.-sponsored meeting trying to bring together the warring factions in some sort of political reconciliation process. there are a couple of problems with that, though, including the fact that not all of the powers on the ground were even represented or willing to participate in that u.n. process. rose: it seems to me that what you have here is isis being able

to extend its authority or at least its connection to places where it does not have to send soldiers and where it still has some influence from people who are on the ground there. >> absolutely. i might add one thing. the us is often criticized for absence in these places. i think in some cases, that may be true in some places but also, the us structurally has a problem. for instance the us is essentially joined at the hip hughthy movement was born out of resentment of saudi policies. unless the us can put some day light between them because we are beholden to the saudis about information of what's happening there not to mention our drone program. it's very difficult for us to do the kind of diplomacy that would be required to rebuild the state and create the kind of structure that would allow us to actually, in a more effective way, to fight the jihadis.

rose: let me turn to yemen. david ignatius wrote today what happened is not different from the other nations shaken by the arab revolution the us military intervention hasn't checked the disintegration or the american retreat. the conclusion is so obvious we sometimes overlook it. the history is being written by the arabs, not outsiders foreign assistance can help strong broadly based governments but not fragile polarized ones ". is that is this true about yemen? >> in yemen the us has one guiding interest. that is al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula the terrorist group that is based there in yemen. so when the arab spring erupted in 2011 was the us looked at what was happening around the world in tunisia, libya, syria and it wanted to avoid the sort of collapse in yemen that it was seeing in these other places. so, it tried to broker a deal

that would see the long, you know, president abdullah sula had been in power for three three years. some sort of deal that would see him step down and there would ab transition. what the us did at the time was it basically ab dictated authority to saudi arabia. so the kingdom of saudi arabia had the sort of lead for the democratic transition in yes, ma'amep and what we have seen is that kicking the can down the road, the sort of three years has not really worked. and so now, the government in yemen has collapsed. the president has resigned the prime minister has resigned, and now the houthis have moved in which is a shiia group and they are the natural enemy of al-qaeda. what we see is what's likely to have happen in the next little bit is that al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula will get stronger and so what the u s. wanted to do have a good ally there on the ground, it isn't in a position to do that. >> president obama robert said in august, you look at a country like yemen, a very impoverished

country that has its own sectarian or ethnic divisions there we have a committed partner in their president and his government. no longer. absolute right. he is gone and in his place, it's difficult to say. ideally we would have the kind of diplomacy that would allow us to talk to the hourthies. it will -- houthis. their trademark slogan is: death to america. death to israel. still, they are at war with al-qaeda and they seem to be much more effective and committed in fighting al-qaeda than president hadi or his predecessor who tended to think of al-qaeda almost as a kind of investment a way to attract american weapons and training which ultimately sort of tended to fuel greater radicalism. ideally we would find some way to take advantage of the fact that the houthis are actively fighting al-qaeda. difficult to do because they are al liveried with iran and have a deep resentment of american

power in the region. when you have these entrenched divisions in the region, it's really, really difficult for the americans to get involved in a positive way. and i think it's particularly difficult because we don't have open eyes in the region. i mean, we have scaled back at almost all of the embassies in the middle east. we have less ability to see what's going on there. and that makes us dependent in many countries on -- for information, for basic intelligence about what's happening on people who have a sectarian stake and a real partzan bias rose: what are our options? >> i think at this point, one of the things is to prevent a collapse of the country. in yemen, it's not just howthis and al-qaeda. south yemen which used to be a separate country up until 1990 is now in danger of breaking off off. in the past, you have had a long

term ses situation -- secesionist. they use that really as kind of leverage. what they wanted was to be treated better to be sort of see reforms, to be integrated into the country. at this point, it looks as if those threats may be much more real threats and the saudis are so anxious about houthi influence in yemen they may actually and we don't know this. they may be willing to support the breakaway of some part of south yemen. that's dangerous because it would further erode any kind of authority across the country and possibly allow al-qaeda to flourish. >> just to add to robert's point there, the u.s. and yemen finds itself that it's the enemy of almost every group there. much like in syria where the u.s. is fighting islamist rebels, in yemen, opposed to the houthis but and al-qaeda.

the only ally that the united states had was president haddi who happened to be the weakest player and et cetera gone from the scene. i think to what robert is talking about what we are seeing in yemen is the slow disintegration of a country in which different regions are slowly drifting out of each other's orbit. it's going to be basically a land grab for whatever group has the most guys with guns and they are going to be able to basically hold as much land as they can, as much land as they can claim. and that's a very dangerous situation when you have a group like al-qaeda that wants to establish training camps, that wants to do what isis is doing in iraq and syria and take territory because when they have territory, they can govern, but they can also attract fighters which then as we have seen in different places, they can send back to europe or the united states. rose: beyond the obvious schism between shia and sunni is there reason to believe these groups, while having different ends are

prepared to come together and cooperate in the short-term? >> i think we are going to see for some time to come, for the foreseeable future these type of schisms tearing apart a number of states in the reamon. i think there was the hope four years ago that we were seeing the beginning of a democratic transition. and a democratic transition that was spreading across the region. what we are seeing in some parts, we are seeing it in libya, in syria in yemen is that once a structure that had held things together, even as tenuously but nevertheless held things together for several decades, once that was removed there isn't enough of a basic infrastructure of a state to

govern effectively. and when that happens, it's natural that the people are going to look to other kind of aleak allegiances, whether sectarian, tribal or otherwise, to protect themselves rose: when you look at the arab spring, what is the most visible, positive example of what it accomplished? >> in tunisia you see some positive movements. that's where it started. but elsewhere where there was initially great promise, we have now seen a step back or maybe a step sideways. in egypt, democratic transition has given rise to or given way to a counterrevolutionary return to military rule arguably more impressive than under mubarak. in tripoli or in libya you have replaced a very brutal dictator with civil war. syria, obviously has descended

into a civil war that has certain 200,000 or so lives. very, very difficult to find cause for optimism, i think, as you look around the region. again, it's not a large country, egypt, but i think the potential of tunisia is that a lot of eyes will be trained on it. nothing is guaranteed there either. but at least in tunisia, i was there atum of months ago and what you see is everybody wanting it. it's the one country in the renalon, where i think now everybody wants to be in the political center where the separatist party is trying to show up the women in a hijab and is let me showing women without hijabs where everyone is trying to find common ground. if that is able to succeed -- and there are some indications it will. i think despite the small size of tunisia that will have an

influence. one can only hope rose: how do you measure the us supreme court with airstrikes to stop the forward movement of isis? >> the current strategy of relying on airstrikes and trying to and support local forces, both training iraqi and military forces and supporting syrian rebels, i think that can help stop the expansion of isis. but it's very unlikely, itself, to root out. >> one of the things i think is really important when we are talking about airstrikes, the u.s. has great technology whether we are talking about airstrikes in iraq or drone strikes in yemen but these technologies are very much dependent upon human intelligence on the ground. so what we have seen in iraq and what we have seen in yemen is that as the u.s. loses allies or as the u.s. pulls out troops

that the u.s. no longer has dependable people on the ground and it doesn't matter if a u.s. drone can hit the pick-up that's driving down the road. if the wrong people are in the pick-up or if the u.s. doesn't know who is in the pick-up, then you end up with mistaken drone strikes that i think, instead of pushing back a group like al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula or yemen or rooting out isis in iraq or in syria, next exacerbate the problem and that's something we have seen over the past few years is that the u.s. human intelligence is really our achille's heel in the middle east. >> is there antagonizing reappraisal of what america has to do and how they may coordinate with the saudis in doing this? >> i think there was a sense that the saudis were angry over the past several years. they wanted the u.s. to take out assad in egypt. they feel with the negotiations of iraq's nuclear program we are

handing our policy to iran. they were already for a long time angry over the iraq war, which they felt essentially handed iraq to iran. i think there is probably a desire to renew relationships now that you have a new king, to, you know, to make the dialogue work better than it had in the past. and i think also probably there is a desire to see if the saweder saudis can be a little bit more flexible when dealing for instance with a problem like yemen where you have, you know, a ind of religious, ideological opposition by the saudis to the houthis, which i would imagine that the americans would urge the soudees in a -- saudis to think more pragmatically. the leader of the houthi movement has actually in his speeches reached out and said we would like to work with everybody on this. we would like dialogue. we would like to come up with a solution. i don't know how genuine that is but i would imag that the americans, if they could do anything right now would like

to do their best to urge the saudis by far the most powerful partner in that part of the world to be as flexible as pos ible. >> it is like the outcome in iraq damaging a broader foreign policy vision? >> yeah. i think the obama administration has put forward a vision of its policy in the region that is based on trying to influence, not dictate events but try to influence events, go in with a small footprint rather than a large footprint boots on the ground and, also, be driven by certain humanitarian imperatives that i believe in very strongly with regard to the exer sides of american power when we can do some good. it often requires a good deal of follow-up, though. and one of the things we see in a lot of these cases is that

trying to put a state back together, to build basic institutions of a state, put aside democracy, jut basic institutions of a state, is often a long-term project. rose: places like libya a lot of those institutions were not there? >> that's right. gadaffi ran libya for four decades by deliberately trying to ensure institutions that could operate without him didn't xichlt you remove him and his cronies the state will collapse? >>ists in cairo during the revolution and the one thing that struck me was when we were talking about four years ago, there was this brief moment of hope in which people's expectations were almost artificially inflated to the point where if we get rid of gadaffi, if we get rid of mubarak, our countries will go back to the world, to the places that our grandparents used to tell us about when things worked, when we would go out our

door and see a world in which we had hope. and what we have seen happen over the past four years is as those expectations were artificially inflated, they have now burst. what's happened is in places like yemen and libya, no one now knows the rules of the game. the rules are being rewritten because the people who made the rule book are gone and the rule book was thrown out. so now everybody is scrambling to 3 to figure out what happened. it's really, really messy and incredibly dangerous. rose reports often people say, you know, the u.s. made a mistake in libya or yemen by interfering too much or too little. given the chaos now in libya some people are saying well, you know, was it the right thing to have the nato bombing campaign in the first place? i think it's easy to second-guess this stuff. i mean people have argued and that, in fact, it might have been possible to reach an agreement and have a cease-fire some negotiated transition with libya. the turks are trying to do that at the time. the algerians were doing that.

i doubt it. i think the momentum was so grated and no western leader was willing to step in and play the part of the cold realit and disappoint these revolutionaries. it was the feeling you would have lost the arab public if you did that. chris stevens the ambassador who was killed until 22012 thought a lot about this. i knew him not well but somewhat. he wanted to have a light footprint from the country, ultimately, you know, i don't know whether he was wrong or not. but we suffered perhaps for not having followed up closely enough, and yet you know, chris didn't want a large american presence in that country. i think is very hard to say whether the u.s. could have done better buy in libya or syria or anywhere else by intervening sooner. i think it certainly is very possible we could have saved lives in syria if the u.s. and its partners had been more aggressive and more imaginative with their diplomacy but whether

the u.s. could have changed the strategic picture on the ground, especially in syria where you have the iranians who feel this is a life or death issue for them, you have the russians also backing bashar al-assad i doubt we could have made that big a difference. rose: would we be better off if gadaffi was in pour in libya? >> i hate to say yes. there might have been less loss of life. but certainly it's hard to imagine things could be much worse. i was in tripoli in august, 2011, and i remember seeing a huge warehouse full of weapons just on the outskirts of the city. there were shoulder-fired missiles a football field sized, you know, area full of bombs, of mortar shells, tank shells. i went back to that same plates a few days later. much of it was gone. those weapons are now in the sinai "penguins of madagascar." they are all over libya and who knows where else. we have a whole region that is

just on fire with insurgeencies. on the other hand i think it would have been hard to tamp all of this down. you saw this tremendous, tremendous energy and let's say for instance, if the u.s. had not intervened f there had not been a nato intervention in 2011 in libya, i think libya at this point would probably look a lot like syria. you would have had a civil war that would have lasted longer. rose: probably with killing more people? >> probably so. rose: okay. thank you, robert worth and matthieu waxman and gregover johnsen. the specter of failed states is troubling washington because they were where al-qaeda came from out of afghanistan. i thank each of you for being here. thank you for joining us. see you next time. for more about this program and early episodes visits us online at cbs.org and charlierose.com.

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this is "nightly business report" with tyler imagine son and sue varella. >> stocks take a late day tumble and so do bond yields. investors try to make sense of the federal reserve statement. >> the hard part the central bank says the u.s. economy is expanding at a solid pace. inflation is below its target and the global economy is sputtering. how the fed will try to thread the policy needle. the airline industry flush with cash spent it on new planes. all that and more tonight on nightly business report for wednesday january 28th. good evening, everyone and welcome, another turbulent day in the markets today. stock investors tried to