>> rose: we talk to tom friedman. >> obama i think is someone who believes in hunting big game. that is what you are here for. and that if you can, in a prudent way, in a away that serves the that interests be leaves us protection to reverse things if they go bad, if you can take a giant battleship like the u.s./ iran relationship, and begin to turn it in another direction, that is a really, really important thing. it's a high-risk thing but i really believe he feels he came there to hunt big game this is one of the biggest game he was out to hunt. >> rose: also this evening foreign correspondent dexter filkins who writes for "the new yorker" magazine, his most recent article is

called "death of a prosecutor." >> on january 15th he was scheduled to appear in front of the-- a committee of the congress to testify about this. 12 hours before, he is found dead in a pool of blood, in the bathroom of his apartment. with a pistol in his hand. and that's the case. so, the coroner initially ruled it suicide. i have to say that nobody really believed that at the time. very few people believed it at the time. so the question is how did he die? was it murder or suicide? >> rose: tom friedman and dexter filkins when we continue. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> 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: tom friedman is here. he is a pulitzer prize-winning author and foreign policy columnist for "the new york times." last week he spoke with president barack obama about the nuclear deal with iran soon after it had been announced. here is how the president defined the agreement with tom. >> we're not measuring this deal by whether we're solving every problem that can be traced back to iran, whether we are eliminating all their nefarious activities around the globe. we are measuring this deal and that's-- was the original premise of this conversation, including by prime minister netanyahu. iran could not get a nuclear weapon. that was always the discussion.

and what i am going to be able to say and i think we will be able to prove is that this by a wide margin is the most definitive path by which iran will not get a nuclear weapon, and we ill be able to achieve that with the full cooperation of the world community and without having to engage in another war in the middle east. >> rose: secretary of defense ashton carter announces saudi regime support for the deal following talks with king solman on wednesday in saudi arabia. meanwhile, secretary of state john kerry told congress that a rejection of the accord will give tehran a green light to accelerate its nuclear program. >> the choice we face is between an agreement that will insurance iran's nuclear program is limited rigorously scrutinized and wholly peaceful. or no deal at all. that's the choice. >> rose: i am pleased to have tom friedman back at this table. welcome. >> good to be here,

charlie. >> rose: this is a big deal. >> it's a big people in history. >> rose: big moment in history. >> 36 years that we've had this hostile relationship with iran. you know, charlie, i was thinking in 1979, i was a reporter on fleet street for u.p.i. in london. and my bosses came to me one day and said the number two man in the beirut bureau has been shot actually by a man robbing a jewelry store. he got nicked in the ear. would you like to go to beirut? 1979. the iranian revolution was just happening. i think we were in the middle of it. and so, that's when i stepped into the middle east and i realized, thinking about it in the wake of what happened, my entire career has been framed by this u.s./iranian cold war. >> rose: connected to it. >> yeah. >> rose: you are there with the president the day after he announced the deal. you are sitting with him. give me a sense of how it felt in terms of him, in terms of his sense of what this moment was about his deep conviction that this was the only way to go, and

his sense of what it meant for him personally. >> two words stand out to me, charlie. this was actually the morning of. >> right. >> one you just used, conviction. this was not pretend. this is a president who agree with him or disagree with him, really believes he has shut off the pathway for iran to break out with a nuclear weapon for the next 15 years, number one. number two, he has an extremely tight logic around which he makes that argument and number three, something he doesn't say but i really believe he believes, obama i think is someone who believes in hunting big game. that that is what you are here for. and that if you can, in a prudent way, in a way that serves the national interest and leaves us protection to reverse things if they go bad, if you can take a giant battleship like the

u.s.-iran relationship and begin to turn it in another direction, that is a really really important thing. it's a high-risk thing but i really believe he feels he came there to hunt big game. this is one of the biggest game he was out to hunt. >> rose: two things about that. number one, the other big game was obamacare and getting osama bin laden. he said all of that within the first days of his administration. secondly, this deal didn't start yesterday. i mean, they began to build the sanctions, hoping it would deliver what happened last week. >> well, i tend to look at it actually even before obama, going back to the bush administration. because remember the first elicit iranian programs were actually revealed under president george w. bush. and when he took power, iran had i think several hundred centrifuges. when he left power, they had almost 9,000. i think the bush

administration, condi rice in particular, gets credit for putting the p-5 together, this contact group basically to negotiate with iran. but where i think the first bush administration failed and a very important predicate is number one they launched and lost the iraq war. when you launch and lose the iraq war, you did two things. one is you completely opened the wider arab world to iranian influence because we broke the dam of sunni power in saddam hussein and didn't replace it. and at the same time, you discredited the military option. and where i think bush also failed, and again it's an important predicate, i am not trying to shift blame but this is very important is that internally they could never agree either to use a military option to stop what the iranians were doing or a diplomatic option. because chaney was a hard-liner. and even though they constructed the p-5 to do negotiations, they could never quite get their act together to frame a negotiation. so then obama comes in and i

think he says two things. one is, even though he says all options are on the table he doesn't believe that. and no one really believed any more that force was an option because there was such war fatigue in the country. and people just did not want to go to war over this. i'm talking about america broadly. and so, what obama does is say, well, if i can't go down that route, what i am going to do is actually construct a real diplomatic choice. i am going to get the sanctions racheted up so the pain on iran is really high and at the same time i'm going to put a carrot on the table that you can, and this was very controversial and will remain so, you can basically keep a constrained nuclear infrastructure if you limit your ability to make a weapon. >> rose: i would add three things to that. number one he is by temperment a guy that believes in bold move but also negotiation, believes in dialogue, whether law professor background or whatever it is. number two a lot of the bush people would not agree with you that they lost the iraq

war. because they believe after the surge, they were able to do what they did. and number three the question of whether he had given up the military option i suspect, that if somebody walked in his office and said they're within a month of having a nuclear weapon he would have said we have to do something. >> i would agree with that. >> because i'm to the going to have iran get a nuclear weapon on my watch. >> and the iranians were very smart about that, so they always stayed below that threshold. >> rose: that threshold. so, he does have this conviction. is he right? >> well, of course, time will tell. i hate to resort to that cliche. but here is what i feel charlie. i fell like there is a party who we really haven't heard from probably very much at all on this. and that is the iranian people. and ultimately i think they are going to be the most important determinant of this. why do i say that? let's go back to a conversation i think you and i had a couple of years ago when rouhani was elected president. the point i made then was the iranian-- the ayatollah

allowed five men to run for president back then. they were mr. black mr. black, mr. black mr. black, mr. slightly less black, and slightly light black guy was rouhani. and what happens? the overwhelming number of iranians vote for mr. slightly light black. why? because they are so tired of being isolated from the world. one thing you learn when you go to iran is they've had enough islam to know they want less and enough to know they want more. >> rose: they showed that when when they went into the streets after the previous wrb-- when they thought the previous election had been taken a which. >> in other words, are you hani an zarif were in for tourism, that is the supreme leader understood one he had to let rouhani be elected and number two, he had to play this deal out. >> rose: and they knew what they were doing when they selected zarif as the foreign minister. >> no question. >> rose: they knew a guy who knew america and could have a relationship with america. >> and look what the supreme leader has done since that

crackdown, the 2009 revolution. they have eased up a lot. they have eased up a lot internally. these guys are survivors you know. and so, all i'm saying is that ultimately i think the people who will shape iran's behavior more than anything is that sort of wider public opinion. >> rose: but back to the president's conviction. you seem to argue in your columns that it is the best option and can be an effective option is properly implemented and augmented. >> right. and i think that's really important. because one of the things that has concerned me from the very beginning is you can do a simple arms control deal with so one you don't trust. charlie, you cross that line, i will punch you in the nose. you can do a complicated arms control deal with someone you do trust. we have that with south korea and japan. through the i.a.e. we monitor their nuclear program. but a complicated arms control treaty with someone you don't trust is, like really complicated. and the opportunities for

mess-ups, for sensors not working, for somebody not showing up, for cheating... >> rose: it puts a burden on verification. >> it puts a huge-- especially when are you dealing with multiple sites, an entire supply chain. when you read... the good news is the deal is comprehensive. the bad news is it is comprehensive. and the complexity of overseeing something this comprehensive, i think we're going to hear a lot more about that challenge. >> rose: but the president is making this argument, which goes not to the merits of his deal but there are no better alternatives. that this may not be a perfect deal as he would like it. he didn't get everything he wanted because it was a negotiation. >> right, yup. >> rose: but if you look at the alternatives, it leaves much to be desired. >> i have written in the run-up to this deal, i am concerned that we never got up from the table and walked out. i would have liked to have actually seen that at one point. >> rose: we don't need this deal. >> you need it more than we do. which i ultimately believe they did. there are issues, the

question of observing and getting access to suspicious sites not covered by the deal. you can get that in 24 days. gosh, i would like to have seen that-- half that at the maximum, you know. 24 days, that's a long time to get access to a suspicious site. so there are things i wish we had bargained harder on, that i would have liked to have seen us hold the line on. >> rose: what is the best example of that? >> i think the one where they are most vulnerable. once you have decided that iran is going to be allowed to keep its basic centrifuge infrastructure which was a huge concession, which again they believed they had to do because iran had built all this despite the sanctions. and they had the know-how and could rebuild it again. >> rose: the president said time after time they were to the going to tear everything down. >> and again once you took that military option off the table you had no average there. so i think the biggest vulnerability, there is two. one is this question of access to suspicious sites that aren't covered by the deal, 24 days. and the other, and this, i understand why it's not part

of the negotiations but where the iranians could give a huge boost to the president if they wanted to, is release the four missing americans there. that would really be something would i think get people's attention here. >> rose: why did they hold them in the first place? >> well, i assume it is the revolutionary guards, people opposing this deal holding them precisely to screw up the deal. and in an effort to do that. and the question now is, you know, is the supreme leader going to say enough is enough. that will get to-- one of the things this really struck me, i have been to iran and i've been to saudi arabia in a really short period of time back in the 1990s. and what strikes you most about iran, charlie, is that iran has real politics. last time i wass with in iran, do you know what the biggest issue being debated, i wrote about this in my column. is someone had put up a resolution in the iranian parliament, why are we giving all this money to palestinians? i did like a double take.

i mean what? i mean that say real story. >> rose: about why are we giving all this money to hamas. >> so there's-- because remember these are persians, why are you giving all this money to arabs was the undertone of this. so what you are going to see is real-- more real politics emerge there. of that i'm certain. but again i would predict no linear path. but on the question of no option, i have listened closely to the critics. because you know, i consider myself not a soft liner on this issue. i think iran having a potential nuclear weapon is a huge blow to the nuclear nonproliferation regime and that affects us very much in america. >> rose: and it makes the middle east even more of a -- >> exactly. in a region that is already a powder keg. i just don't hear anything coming from the critics that persuades me that will be better than this. i understand prime minister netanyahu's reluctance. but what do i hear him

saying? more sanctions would lead to a better deal. in other words, iranians are perfectly logical; if you increase the pressure they'll increase the concessions. he says that monday, wednesday friday. tuesday and thursday he says these people are wild, crazy if you give them a bomb they are going to drop it on the jews the next day. >> rose: are they rational, or irratiol? but i don't take israel's concerns lightly. i covered a lot of iran's handiwork firsthand. i covered the u.s.-- the iranian-inspired we believe hezbollah-inspired bombing of the u.s. embassy. i covered personally the bombing of the u.s. marines in beirut. i was in israel when they-- when hezbollah emerged and to me hezbollah has been a terrible organization, first and foremost for lebanese shiites and for lebanon in general. i am stunned the degree to which hezbollah has become

the cat's paw entirely of iran and not truly a lebanese organization promoting the entrance of lebanese shiites. so i get all the concerns. but to show me a credible pathway that is going to deliver on balance more security to more people and more places. >> rose: the president seems to argue, the president argues that this thing ought to be looked at only in the confines of do we stop them from getting a bomb. that has to be a highest priority. we ought to deal with this. we are not unmindful of that and perhaps we can embed this deal in terms of some new effort along that line. but if in effect fact they did have the bomb and they were doing all of these things, it would be much more of a terrible weapon for them to have in their own nefarious activities. >> and i share that view. i think if you are going to do a deal you have to stay focused, eyes on the prize. let's lock away a bomb a year away from assembly for the next 15 years. and let's also remember something else, charlie. you know, we've basically,

because we have been so isolated from iran, our view of the middle east for now 36 years has been deeply colored by our relationships with israel and saudi arabia and the arab gulf states. and they have their own interests here. and turkey as well. and so the idea that iran is all black and they're all white as the driven snow is simply a fantasy. 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from saudi arabia. none of them were from iran. iran in fact was the only country that had spontaneous demonstrations in support of america after that. >> rose: and people argue that what drives isis is wahhabiism rather than anything they got from the shiite side. >> isis is just one notch, i will tell you a story. i was in-- last june, i was the commencement speaker at the american universe of kurdistan, great honor great fun, a week later isis emerged. i was talking to iraqi officials because they took

mosul, the first town. they said it was interesting. people in mosul said isis went around to doors and the homes of christians, they put an arabic nun for nasarians. and in the home of the shiites they put a rache for ravi rejecters. and you know what the iraqis said, they said we have never seen this before. we had to look it up in the dictionary. we discovered it is in an archaic term for shiites that comes from saudi arabia. so isis, my view is, the guidance system was-- comes straight out of saudi wahhabiism. the fuel for isis, though comes from iran. because the iranians push mallachi, the iraqi prime minister to push and push and crack down on the sunni arabs of iraq to the point where they were ready to welcome an isis. so you know,-- likes to say iran and iraq on the within hand they lit the fire of mallaki and come and say to america we'll help you put

out the fire. well, you guys lit the fire okay. >> rose: the fire is burning and we have to do something about the fire regardless of whether they lit it or not. >> absolutely. but the saudis are also arsonists and firefighters there, you know. and the idea that one-- that we have some-- our interests to me, charlie, in the middle east are the following. where there is disorder, let's try to build order. egypt, where there is order egypt, try to make it a little more decent. where there is decent order, jordan, u.a.e., kurdistan try to make it more consensual. and where there is consensual order, tunisia, lebanon, protect it like a rare flower. we just have got to go right down that checklist, it seems to me. but don't buy into anybody's, you know, schtick here. because there is a deep shi'a, arab, persian, sunni, you know, thing going on here that you and i aren't part of this story.

but you know i've said before, you know-- . >> rose: and probably can't influence it. >> this is-- exactly. it's so beyond-- it's so deep. i mean, iran, again, it's like your big brother walks out the door 36 years ago, slams the door. charlie takes his stereo, tom takes his bicycle, he vote takes his budget bed, charlotte takes his favorite pen. okay. and we're really enjoying-- and we got a sole relationship with dad over in washington. 36 years later, big brother is back. i want my pen, i want my stereo, i want my bicycle that's what is going on. so the arabs are freaking out because they have had in many ways, there's never been an iranian ambassador in washington. so they have had a sole, a monopoly, basically, on the dialogue here. and that is going to break down. and that is a good thing. because ultimately, charlie what have we learned? i think we have learned two things about the middle east and one is we don't know what we're doing. i mean we tried in

afghanistan. we tried in iraq. we tried in libya. >> rose: but is there a reason to stop trying? >>. >> no, but there is a reason to act with humility, okay and not think you can remake all of this. number one. and there is a reason to understand that if you think one side is all black and the other is all white, you have been there too long. you have been-- you need to come home. you need to check out, maybe spend some time in thailand or some other country because it's a really complicated story. >> rose: back to the deal itself. some of the arguments and you have thought about this and written about this and have in fact talked to the president. one idea is that the president feels strongly about that if in fact this deal doesn't work, the sanctions will fall away. you they, that they will not be able to, if the united states congress says no, and the president's veto is overridden, that there will be no chance to go back to sanctions because everybody used the sanctions to get them to the table. they came to the table. they made a deal.

and we're to the going to try to put that together because we suffered from it because of the economic consequences because we bought into your argument that a deal was possible, if we kept to -- >> the point the president made in our conversation was you know, a bunch of countries, first of all, we have got our own, we've got fracking, we have no problem with oil. but there are a bunch of countries indonesia malaysia, india, japan, who actually really need access and would benefit from access to iran's natural resources, okay. so they actually are sacrificing. so the idea that they are are all going to continue to sacrifice after we do a deal but then the congress decides to pull the plug at the behest of the prime minister of israel, how many of them are going to keep signing on to that, for how long? that is a real challenge. i get-- i really like to look at an alternative. i mean, this is an imperfect deal. but i don't see one. and the fair-minded people who don't come at this

hating obama or looking at it through politics, i don't see a lot of fair-minded people showing me a pathway that can get us from here to there. could they have bargained better? could john kerry been more ferocious? i think that's open for debate and discussion. but we are where we are. >> rose: john kerry played a crucial role here, though. >> oh, there is no question. >> rose: his own endurance, his own sense of commitment to the deal. >> that is the strength of kerry, he is not somebody without does get up from the table. i'm not going to walk away. i will keep on, i will keep beating at you and beating at you. he deserves a lot of credit. >> rose: another part of the article by those who oppose the president is that look we'll delay it for 10 to 12 years but they'll get a nuclear weapon after the 10 or 15 years. yes, we'll restrain it to you but they can continue to do research, and after the 10 to 15-- in middle east 10 to 15 years is not a long time as you know. >> sure. >> rose: they will get the weapon. and then once they get a weapon all hell will break

loose because the saudis will want a weapon and you will have nuclear proliferation and the 21st century is changed. >> and i say a country of 85 million people, that has been a great civilization that educates its men and women, that believes in science and technology, if it wants to get a bomb, is going to get a bomb. and they've proven this under the most severe sanctions possible. so, the idea that we can somehow permanently prevent them from getting the nuclear fuel cycle, with sanctions or without, i think is-- was an illusion. they demonstrated that they could do it. now, what critics say and there is legitimacy to this, but we're new blessing it going forward. and i think that's a matter of concern and dispute. but they are going to get this capability. the question is, will they have the intention and do he with signal, and this is why i have argued that we need to be signaling through congress much more forcefully now.

authorizing the president very clearly, the right to destroy an iranian nuclear weapon if they develop one. >> rose: you want to authorize the congress for this president and future presidents. >> authorize you right now and listen, we hope are you listening in tehran. >> exactly. >> rose: what this congress is authorizing, this future presidents to use all means necessary to stop your -- >> and with all in caps, okay, because they have to know that even if you get the fuel cycle, enrich more efficient, that iran acquiring a bomb, this iranian regime requiring a bomb crosses a red line for us for america. it would be bad for the world. it would be truly the end of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. >> rose: i don't understand why the prime minister of israel wouldn't say, look rather than trying to attack you in the u.s. congress and at every stop to say this is a historic disaster, he might not have participated with the united states to say, look, let's do with he with are just talking about

so that we are there on the inside trying to have some influence because in the inevitable likelihood that you prevail, we're on the outside. >> yeah. >> rose: we'll always support israel. >> imagine a different approach had netanyahu taken six months ago. instead of getting himself invited by john boehner to give his third address to congress without informing the white house what if he had done this, he called up president obama and said mr. president, this issue is so important, i want to bring the heads of the five major political parties in israel. all of us agree that iran must not get a bomb. and the deal we're heading for is disastrous. we would like to meet with you in private sir, in camp david. you and your national security team. so you understand exactly hour view and exactly our red line. and then good sir, with your permission, i would like to meet with the democratic and republican caucuses together to share with congress our view. >> rose: but not publicly.

>> but not do it publicly on the eve of my election, which really then raises a lot of suspicion. >> rose: about his motives. >> where do his motives stop where does his political interests start? and there was another way to do this. israel has legitimate concerns. you know, you think of the eight years of ahmadinejad. the holocaust denial conferences, the awful, vile things this man said and did and supported. you look at the attack in argentina on the israeli diplomatic mission there in the jewish community center by hezbollah, clearly agents of iran. israel has legitimate concerns. and i don't expect the israelis to ever really like any deal that would empower iran. i totally get that. but i think they would be at this stage advancing-- unless they've got a credible alternative and it isn't just getting a bunch of congressman to vote with them for mixed motives because they are going to do it for political reasons.

>> rose: do you imagine that the israeli government would act on their own if in fact congress does not stop this deal? >> i would imagine that if israel felt that iran had moved from where they are now three months breakout in the interim deal that was moving toward a bomb and israel detected it. >> the president-- from where it is now. >> closer to zero. >> yeah, i would expect the israelis would do anything they could and come to us and encourage us to do it. >> i think it's something that we would listen to. but let's remember, prime minister netanyahu, some people criticized him for this, some praised him for it, is actually one of the most cautious israeli leaders who have ever sat in the prime minister's chair. he is not a man who is-- he's rhetorically quick to the draw. but he has been risk averse in terms of this kind of activity. he's been there now for... >> rose: and politically sensitive. >> eight, nine years and also remember there is a

huge debate and it is going to be coming out more, charlie, in the next few days within the israeli national establishment. i think are you going to hear more and more voices there. you already hear a few of retired shin bet and house sad people saying this deal did not that bad, let's learn to live with it. i always remember something, on the former israeli foreign minister used to say to his hawkish critics. he said, folks, we are not a disarmed costa rica. let's remember that. israel is not a disarmed costa rica. we do have over 200 nuclear weapons of our own. you know. >> rose: that is akin to his remark that the palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. >> yeah, there is a very good point made by shi feldman in the national interest in a piece this week about compare saddam's behavior and iran's-- iran's behavior. three times saddam hussein supposedly rational saddam hussein, actually shook the dice on the whole regime. took a hail mary. he launched a war against

khomeini's iran, 1980. >> rose: which the iranians never forgive us for supporting. >> he invaded you can witing this thinking he would get away with it and starred george bush down about u.n. inspectors this is a guy who shook the dice three times. show me where the iranians have ever done anything half that reckless, you know what what i mean? these are survivors, you know. and i business there was some way to begin, that they would on their own, look, the jewish people have a deep and long an positive history with persia, the relationship between the jewish people now and the persian nation is inorganic right. we have a much more organic many persians jews with fond memories of their time in iran. there's a deep history

there. >> rose: the argue you made consistently over the last ten years, if you look at the middle east, because of the internet there is a within every country, a group of people who want to participate in the world. and they're being prevented from that often by people who claim to be friends of the united states. >> right. and i think that going back to what i said earlier. i think everything is going to happen. you are going to wake up and see crazy stuff about israelis and iranians communicating on twitter. you are going to see deals you are going to hear about shady back room things and see really hard line ugly behavior, at the same time. and in ten years we'll see where the balance is. >> rose: a couple things, one that is part of the argument as well. that this 100 billion dollars that comes into play, that clearly even the president acknowledged iranians will use some of that, to support hezbollah and hezbollah will have a role in syria, hezbollah will have... iranians will have an influence in yemen. and we can't stop that. but we know that that money

in part will go to their efforts to make their behavior even more egregious. >> well, so, why can't we stop it? i point out two things. one is, the reason hezbollah, really a tiny group, really a very small group, has been so successful, one is they have a very powerful, they are good fighters. it's because the sunni arabs have been all divided. the lebanese party has been all divided you know. and that's allowed them to play actually lebanese christians off against sunni muslims in lebanon. how many... how many opposition groups are there in syria, sunni, al-nusra, all qusra, al busra, you have got hezbollah versus everybody else. so, what has been the historical problem of the sunni arab world? tribalism, the inability to make a fist. iran can spend all the money in the world, it can put all 100 billion into hezbollah. but if the arabs got their

act together, if the sunni arabs got their act together. >> rose: they could trump that. >> in a second. and also, iran today in my view, yeah, they are in all these capitals, they are deeply overextended, you know. they are the mirror image of what we were about seven eight years ago. and so, i don't dispute this is money but right now with all the money, hezbollah has got, you follow the lebanese press, hezbollah has never been less popular in lebanon and there's never been more vocal open criticism by shiites in lebanon saying how did we get involved in this war in syria? what are you doing? >> rose: but they have because of the iranians and others have added to their military, even though they were devastated by the israeli war, they have added since then, and the capacity of their missiles is said to be greater. >> sure. arabs can buy missiles too. why don't they? that was one of the points the president made. he made it less politely in the last interview he did. which is you in the arab

world, you sunnis, you've got to get your stuff together. why are all your sons going off to join isis? how do i-- how do i deal with you are your hezbollah problem when there are 2,000 saudis that have gone to join isis? when turkey seems to one day open its border and one day close its border to isis. there are so many games inside of games being played here. and it's one of the things also the president at this stage, i sense, deeply resents. i'm not going to send any more american men and women into this den of vipers where you need-- you know, on those aircraft we have identification, friend or foe, if they can get an apple watch on each one of these guys that broadcast friend or foe. it's really not clear who is friend and who is foe here. >> rose: therefore you support the decision he made with respect to syria in 2011? >> i still debate that. i really think it's worthy of debate. i was on the side of not intervening. again, because i really

believe, charlie, the middle east only puts a smile on your face when it starts with them. an when it starts with us it ends with us. it's not self-sustaining. >> rose: so what is the friedman formula for dealing with isis? >> i think it really goes back to what i was saying before, which is that we have got to look for the islands of decency. jordan, kurdistan, baghdad coalition, be it what it may, empower them and build on them. and if they are ready to fight against isis, okay, i am ready to aid them in any way i can. i'm to the going to put american boots on the ground, necessarily. but we have-- we could only build, charlie, on iraqis sunnis, basically ready to take down these awful isis. we can't do it for them. >> rose: but we do have the following things. one is the f.b.i. directed yesterday saying isis is much more of a threat than al qaeda ever was, number one.

number two, your own tim mirendo has been writing a interesting piece talking about isis, these guys are thinking about their own future, they are organizing and not just like traditional terrorists, they are doing more in terms of taking territory and trying to organize that territory, and in fact making allowances for the fact that one or more of them might be hit by a drone. so it's a different kind of enemy. >> it's a smart enemy. it's a learning enemy. >> rose: and it's taking territory. >> why is it taking territory? i mean it gets to me the single most underestimated force in arab politics today. governance. okay. why did these guys in mosul first let isis in? and they basically let them in, okay. because malaki, the shiite prime minister of iraq, was so hammering the sunnis firing their generals, taking money away, that basically they said well these guys actually will be-- these awful guys are less awful than those guys. >> rose: that's beginning to

change because of-- . >> what tim's story is telling you is that they understand if they want to keep that, they've got to govern. >> rose: they have to do less bad behavior in order to get the support of the sunni tribes. >> exactly. charlie, it always goes back to this question. why is it, going back to the afghanistan, we are the ones always saying we just got to train-- we have just got to train a few thousand more. >> rose: we heard ash carter say that in the end. >> we just have to train them. who trained the taliban? who trained isis? who trained al qaeda, you know? >> rose: that is-- people say the silver bull set training them to make the fight. >> training is a by product of allegiance to a set of ideas and a set of values. and if you have got that you don't need any training. and if you don't have that all the training in the world won't get you to stand and fight. except for your own home. >> rose: but does all your understanding and familiarity with the kurds what do they say to you about the support they're

getting from the united states? >> i think they were disappointed at first. i think they are a lot happier now. i think that there is an understanding. i saw the kurdish leadership in washington last month when they were there. and i think there's a much greater appreciation. again, are they switzerland? no, they're not. but it's an island of decency. and right now we need decency, charlie. maybe from decency as we say one day can build true democracy. but i will settle for islands of decency. >> who is going to provide the troops on the ground to take on isis? does it have to come from the iraqis? and where does it come from in syria? are we making any, and is time on our side or their side? >> so if you say, if i could rephrase your question, say you get to be-- redraw the middle east map. i mean, what is the rational way would you do it? what you would do, first of all you would go back to the

only peace agreement that is has really held all these years and that is the lebanese peace agreement forged in 1989 to end the lebanese civil war. charlie, it was built on one principle-- no victor, no vanquished, and the minority gets overrepresented. so the christians were 30%. but they got 50% of the seats. that is how the lebanese civil war ends. syria and iraq will only end when the shi'a and sunni there primarily say to each other we can't kill all of you. you can't kill all of us-- . >> rose: even they you are 10%, we will give you more. >> so that syria will become a sunni dominated country, let me finish this, with the aloe whites getting extra protection as a minority iraq will become a shi'a dominated country with the sunnis getting extra minority. 30 years from now, i promise you, at this table hopefully we'll still be here if this table is not in the smithsonian, and that if

this ends in the middle east, charlie, it will be because rationality finally weighed in and the iraqis, syrians, shi'a and shuni came to the deal that the tunisians came to early and the lebanese came to earlier: no victor, no vanquished. we have got to find a way to share this. the minorities get overrepresented, and we march on. >> rose: well, and as the president said, this iranians get involved in syria. he said that, too. >> yeah. >> rose: because you asked him. >> yeah, absolutely. >> rose: the russians get involved. and the interesting thing is. >> maybe something happens. >> rose: the interesting thing, again the president said to you, the russians played a positive role here in the iranian nuclear debate. >> he went out of his way to say it. >> rose: that's my point. >> one of the things that occurs to me. there is the potential here for, like the mother of all grand bargains this goes back to like versaille. and it would start with u.s.

russia and ukraine, agreeing that russia will lease crimea for 99 years and in return pay rent to ukraine in the form of natural gas. putin doesn't have to climb down. he gets to lease-- a lease back, we find a way to get putin out of the ukraine tree and then back-- . >> rose: which is probably something we like. >> he would like and back into the game where he can be somewhat of a partner in resolving syria and iraq. you do that, you got a chance for a different trajectory in that part of the world. >> rose: what a life you have. you get up in the morning and look at these things and say who can i talk to, where can i travel and who can help me understand. and then you can tell everybody about it. >> second-best job in the world. >> rose: tom friedenman, back in a moment, stay with us. >> rose: dexter filkins is a staff writer for "the new yorker" magazine.

his piece in this week's issue takes a look at the death of the argentine prosecutor alberto nisman in january of 2015, nisman accused argentin president kirchner of covering up iran's role in the deadliest terror attack in the country's country. history. days later, nisman was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head. dexter filkins calls the case the latin-american equivalent of the j.f.k. assassination. i'm pleased to have dexter back at this table. welcome. >> thank you very much. >> rose: take me to this story. >> well, it's an amazing story. there are so many threads and so many countries involved. i mean, it was, you know, a bombing of the jewish center in argentina probably carried out by iran and hezbollah. so you had this prosecutor alberto nisman who was totally driven and obsessed by this case. he was not going to be stopped. he was going to get to the bottom of it. so he plugged on the case

for years and years and years. and you know, he indicted the leadership of the iranian government. the iranians laughed at him. he went to interpol. he got the arrest warrant secured. so what happens, and i think you know what i went down to look at was two years ago the argentine government announced that it had made a really remarkable deal with the iranians. and it was but a very strange deal to set up a truth commission to investigate this terrorist bombing which everybody more or less assumed the iranians did. and nisman was enraged. he investigated the government. and the government of argentina. and what he found, and what he claimed to have found was, in fact, there was a secret deal that the argentine government wasn't telling anyone about to more or less forget this terrorist attack. >> rose: what is the incentive to forget? >> grain oil, economics, basically, money.

and so he said that this was a criminal conspiracy by the president of argentina and its foreign minister to forget this terrorist attack. >> rose: probably under pressure from iran, he would argue. >> yes. and so he was on january 15th, he was scheduled to appear in front of the-- a committee of the argentine congress to testify about this. 12 hours before he is found dead in a pool of blood in the bathroom of his apartment with a pistol in his hand. and that's the case. so the coroner initially ruled it suicide. i have to say that nobody really believed that at the time. very few people believed it at the time. so the question is how did he die? was it murder or suicide? and that's what i want down there basically to try to figure out. >> the reasonable people think it could have been suicide? >> yes, i mean suicide of course is, i mean we'll never know.

he was found-- he was found you know, in his apartment the doors were locked. in his own blood, with a pistol next to-- pistol to kill him. >> friends can testify to what his mental state was. >> yeah. >> and that kind of thing and whether he had ever talked about considering suicide, whether he was fearful of his life, whatever, whatever, whatever. >> yes, and that's what i did. and what i found was just exactly that. i talked to his friends. i talked to the circle of people around, people who knew him, people who worked with him, his friend. nobody, nobody told me that he was suicidal, even depressed. in any way inclined towards any of that, even hours before. so, you know, he's sending e-mails to people, you know, hours before he was supposed to appear in congress saying i can't wait to get in there. i'm really fired up. and then they find him dead in his apartment. and so there is a lot of very intriguing evidence. >> rose: where does he get the gun?

>> he got the gun, this is where it gets really weird. i mean there are so many layers to this story. he was terrified the last couple days of his life. he wouldn't leave his apartment. he sent his mother out to get groceries for him. he told people that he had overheard wiretapped conversations that the iranian intelligence was coming after him, basically. and so, he was really, really nervous. he called an employee in his office and said do you have a gun? i spoke to that employee diego messino. he said, look, i didn't want to give it to him. it's just this old gun, this old pistol. he persuaded me to bring it over there i brought it over, i gave it to him. he said, do you think he was going to kill himself. he said absolutely not. i was afraid he was going to use that gun to kill somebody else. you know, but that happened that happened hours before he was dead. so the question is, there is a gap.

diego largo messino lends him the pistol and a few hours later he's dead. what happened? >> rose: what did you conclude? >> well, i didn't answer it directly in, you know, i didn't find i didn't get a confession from the assassin. i think, if you read my story from beginning to end you will see first of all how enormously complex and far-flung this was. and how much pressure this guy was under. but i think that i have to say, i find it hard to believe that he killed himself. if only because there was absolutely no one, no one who seemed to think that he was even remotely inclined towards that. and yet on the other hand there are so many people who wanted him dead. he got death threats all the time. he was humiliating the argentine government. and i should say, i think, his accusation was probably weighted the evidence, it

was probably through. true. the argentine government was trying to get a dull with the iranians to forget there terrorist attack, i think he was probably quite about that. so there were a lot of people in the government who would be deeply embarrassed by the revelations that he was prepared to deliver. and of course the iranians had a lot to lose as well. and so on one hand i couldn't find anybody who told me that, who knew him well who thought he was inclined to suicide and on the other hand, i found a lot of people who had a motive to hurt him or to shut him up. >> so we have a weapon and a motive and what else do we need here. did anybody see anything did anybody hear anything, did anybody notice any car speeding away? >> no, but what is really strange about the case that nusman was making against the argentine government was based on a series of wiretapped telephone conversations. that were, it was like a little hard to explain but

essentially this deal the secret deal between argentina and iran was basically being carried out by some freelance off the books guys. one of whom according to nisman was an argentine intelligence agent. and so, when you start looking this is one of these stories like many stories where-- is in the detail. when you go really, really deep into these details it starts to look, at least for me, it looked more and more like the suicide was not a likely cause of death. and i should say that some medical examiners one hired by his former common-law wife, another one an american one just recently went down there, concluded that he was murdered. >> rose: the relationship to cristina kirchner of all this. >> yes. >> rose: she at one time had a good relationship with him. >> yes. she would come to the

united nations every year the general assembly and denounce the iranians whenever ahmadinejad the iranian president would come into the room, she would instruct the argentine delegation to walk out. >> rose: but she had a good relationship with nisman. >> she was-- she was his biggest backer. >> rose: and then he started investigating her. >> yeah. because basically i think what happened, honestly, and i interviewed the president and she said, look, i mean, this terrorist attack is 21 years old. we have never been able to solve it. we have never brought justice to the victims, to the survivors. what am i going to do? are we going to wait another 21 years? and so that was-- i think that was her that is her argument. her argument is, look i was just trying to find a way to get some kind of resolution to this. and so, she admits, you know we had these secret negotiations with iranians and then we took to set up this truth commission, you know.

nisman's point is that was a cover story for a much more significant secret agreement that was-- that was made under the table. she denies that. >> rose: does anybody have any evidence about the secret agreement? >> yeah, nisman concluded quite a bit. in the days before, you know i think two days before four days before he was found dead, he turned in a 300 page report to a federal judge in argentina. there is a lot of detail in that report. and there's a lot of compelling evidence in that report. there is no smoking gun that says yes, absolutely, president kirchner. >> does anybody have any lodge cat suspect. logical suspect. i mean are you suggesting most people believe in argentina and buenos aires that it was the iranians who did it? it was accomplices it was friends of president did it or it was -- >> well... >> rose: who else had something to lose. >> as i mentioned, as you mentioned at the top, i said this in the piece, that it

has become the j.f.k. assassination. just everybody has a different theory about who did it. i have to say there was a poll, there was a poll that was taken right after he was killed that, where i think it was 70% of the argentine people believe the government was involved. >> rose: the government was involved. >> involved in his death. and that he was murdered. yeah. i don't know, i don't know there's-- nisman had identified a very mysterious person who was working on this case. a guy named in these transcripts, his name is allen. and nisman said this is an argentine intelligence officer who was kind of orchestrating this secret deal. so it is possible. >> rose: did you talk to allen. >> i couldn't find allen. i couldn't find him. so it's possible that if he was killed, the argentine government, there were certainly people who wanted to shut nisman up. >> where does it stand today? >> he is buried in the jewish cemetery in buenos aires.

and the rest of it i think is frozen. and i think that-- i think the tragedy of this murder or of the suicide, whichever one it was, is that nisman, whatever else happened in this case, he knew, he knew this case better than anyone. and as somebody told me, he carried the case in his head. and what does that mean? it means, i think, that it's likely to die with him. and so then, you know, will we ever get any kind of resolution to this really awful terrorist attack that happened in buenos aires in 1994? >> rose: it is a fascinating story. >> yes, thank you. >> rose: iran, argentina and a shocking death by the great dexter filkins, thank you for joining us. see you next time. >> for more about this program and earlier 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

>> the following kqed production was produced in high definition. [ ♪music♪ ] >> yes, check, please! people. >> 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 in the same restaurant. >> leslie: and everybody, i'm sure, saved room for those desserts.