just two years after pulling out of ap operation widely considered to be a mistake, we can make no mistake we are paying the price now. here's the conflict. the sunnis versus the shiites, a conflict older than any of us. and if the unraveling situation in syria wasn't bad enough, sunni militants from there have spilled into iraq, adding fuel to the fire of an already raging conflict. in mosul this morning, militants from isis, the islamic state of iraq and syria, get to know that name, captured the most senior ranking iraqi military official and dozens of other troops, overran the governor's building there in order to do it. over the weekend those same thugs claim to have killed 1,700 iraqi soldiers in tikrit, a claim that still has not been verified. the u.s. embassy in baghdad is being partially evacuated right now. staffers are being sent out, and about 100 or so marines are being sent in to hold down the fort. of course american citizens are being warned to stay away from the region. the best of nbc news finds themselves back in the danger

zone. ayman mohyeldin is in the northern city of erbil for us. >> reporter: well, it is still a very tense situation that's unfolding here on the ground, and more importantly along the area where we are, the kurdish region of iraq, about a thousand miles or so of the border between kurdistan and iraq now in control by isis rebel fighters. in addition to that, the isis rebels or militants have been able to take control over 30 military bases that were at one point controlled by the iraqi national army. four of those bases were occupied by the iraqi military when they were in iraq. not able have they be able to take over large parts of the country territory yally but able to consolidate their control over these arias and try to take the fight to the capital baghdad and other parts. it is a tense situation as this situation continues to unfold.

the iraqi military has launched some air strikes in areas where they say al qaeda-linked militants have been hiding out but has not been able to dislodge isis fighters from the stong holds they've captured in the last week. >> ayman mohyeldin in the danger zone. stay safe there. let's get additional military perspective on all this with lieutenant colonel michael kay, from the uk ministry of defense. obviously the uk a big player in the 2003 invasion, much like former president bush, still paying the price for us going in. former british prime minister tony blair still faces blame as well. we're going to get into this in a minute. michael, what are the american military options as you see them now? and is staying out a real option? >> well, let me first just -- i think you hit the nail on the head with the introduction. the friks and conflict that exist between shia and sunnis have existed for centuries. it goes back to the ottoman

empire. they also haven't been through the west failure system where most of europe went from being a religious based society to a capital based society. there are two issues here which i see very important for the west to really understand. one is regional and one is local or with respect to iraq. i'll come to your question in a second. the first is locally you've got a prime minister maliki who has been supremely devicive in the way he's governed. he sentenced his vice president to death in september 2012. that's going to create even more frictions. security-wise, the west is going to get its head around, that it can't go into a country and can't invade a country, take out the army, take out the police, and then invest in new security infrastructures without there being significant ramifications. u.s. is the most powerful army and military in the world.

and how are have we got on against the taliban? we haven't won, and we are not going to win against insurgencies because they don't play against a rule book. we play by the geneva conventions, the international criminal code. these guys don't. they use ieds. we've also got airpower. america and uk vuk some of the most sophisticated air power in the world. they've been built over years of fighting. you can't just replace an army in iraq and expect them to be able to go against an incredibly sophisticated enemy without airpower, without the experience we've got. we can't do it, so how can we expect them to do? it? region regionally, and this is important as well, we're not joining the dots foreign policy-wise in the region. we've got to understand more about the commonalities lather than the differents. we've heard in the papers today that america are starting to consider talking to iran about the sunni problem. iran are investing in mez bow

la, who are in syria at the moment. so is assad. i'm not saying assad is a good guy. but let's focus on what the xhonl n commonalities are, and if we can join the dots and get consistency in foreign policy we might be able to take this and tackle it head on. isis is a regional problem. what's going on in syria is connected to what's going on in iraq and one doesn't exist without the other. >> to that point you referenced the centuries-old tension between sunni and shia and the fast that most of the idea is more around religious identity rather than national identity. as we're viewing this conflict, can we view it as anything other than a sunni/shia civil war? and why would we want to weigh in on either side of that conflict? >> it's a great question. i think we do have to look at it outside of what we regard as a

western democratic chem plat. we've got to stop imposing a western-style democracy on an area and a region and a country that isn't ready for it yet. we only just went through the system in 1648. that's when we reviewed ourselves as freedom of speech, freedom of enterprise, you know, freedoms that aren't necessarily aligned to sharia law, which is what isis are trying to do, trying to establish a cal fer of sharia law across the region. i'd like to answer your question on the military side. we've seen how things can go drastically wrong in benghazi and we're still talking about that now. even my old job i used to do joint contingency planning for noncombatant evacuation provisions. that's where you put a plan in place if it goes wrong and you need to get the consulate, embassy, noncombatants out of there quickly. that is what the west should be doing at a moment, reacting to

the combat indicators and warnings we've seen. it's not a good security situation and people should be withdrawn. there are there is no reason for the u.s. ambassador to be in iraq at the moment because it is just too dangerous. that's the first thing. the second thing is that boots on ground is not a good idea at the moment. but what about air power? that's what iraq really lacks is the ability to launch an air strike which is what we have used time and time genl, but the iraqis don't have that. so i think there are a number of areas which the u.s. could be looking at but ultimately we have to be more proactive and we have understand more the region and why we go into places and what we're trying to achieve rather than this constant reactive sort of foreign policy that we seem to have got ourselves into over the last four or five years. >> i'm not even certain at this point the u.s. population feels we haven't been sufficiently proactive in iraq. we've been focused on iraq with our blood and treasure for a long time. what we're looking at now is how much crisis and turmoil we're willing to live with if we stay out of there.

on isis specifically, since you spent time in the region, who are they and what does it look like if they get more control over this patch of land in syria and iraq? >> isis is the islamic state for syria. and the chap that's spearheading the organization, baghdadi, who used to run al qaeda in iraq, he saw the gap in security in syria that blew up when the conflict started there. and that's where isis is best. isis is best in areas that have no governments, and that's what they exploit. isis will exploit this to the extreme. so that's what they're using as their hub. they're losing aleppo, the northern part of syria, and using the situation in syria to grow the ideology and effectively try and get some geographical space in order to training camps and so forth and so on. that's spilling over into iraq because as i said before the two are connected.

we need to -- when you leer looking at maliki and the way he governs, that's where the west can also have a serious influence in terms of the way he's being so divisive, and we know he's been devicive. i think there just needs to be more support in terms of the way that governance is executed within iraq, and i think that's another area the west can zone in on. to pick um on your point, exit strategies is the name of the game here. and what the west needs to do is it really needs to understand what an exit strategy is before it goes into a certain place. libya is a classic example at the moment. the muslim brotherhood and al qaeda, they have training camps now in various parts of libya, because effectively it's a governless state. and that's what we've got to avoid doing is imposing this western democratic template on areas that want that aren't ready for it. i'm also understanding that we can't take out security institutions and replace them and expect them to be at the level of maturity we would

expect to fight an urgency. >> learning that lesson the hard way. >> in the north you have this kurdish ethnic minority that has long aspired to its own country and they've been very organized in the last few weeks. you have with kirkuk that fell to isis and the iraqi military, then quickly fell to the curds in isis. what's going on? are we seeing the partition of iraq with the kurlds establishing an a foothold that it will become an dehn country? >> again, josh, that's a really good point. what we're seeing isn't new. the iraqis have always had skirmishes with the curds in the knot and it's all about territory. so what i would say is that whenever you get a flaring of a security situation, it's not just about isis and the shia government, you will get other parties and other militias and other groups that may be aligned with al qaeda but may be aligned to some other organization that will try and exploit the situation. that's all that's happening at the moment is you will get the kurdish militant who is will try and exploit the lack of security

because iraq's military is focused on trying to fight isis. that's why it's so complex, as soon as you move one lever another lever stars to move. >> excellent analysis from michael kay. thank you very much for all of that. up next, the politics of all of this as "the cycle" rolls on. it's monday, june 16th. geico's been helping people save money for over 75 years. they've really stood the test of time. much like these majestic rocky mountains. which must be named after the... that would be rocky the flying squirrel,

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the president is evaluating a very thorough vetting of every option that is available. a lot of work has been going on over the course of this weekend. >> but what has happened in iraq and what we're seeing right now

is isis is a good deal predictable by virtue of the president's failure to act appropriately at the extraordinary time it was prese presented. >> you don't have to believe me. >> at some point even isis was saying -- and this is got into the dispute with al qaeda leadership -- we want to do external operations and by the way we know we have these westerners who have come to jihadist disneyland. >> only the americans can help the iraqis broker across these secretary and ethnic lines. there is nobody else who can do it. we may regret that -- >> the air strikes, people support, drones, whatever it take, but isle make our our intel is accurate before we start doing this. >> welcome back. we'll dig into the chorus of political voices weighing into the unraveling situation in iraq. there you saw some clip prs the weekend and today. and from 1600 pennsylvania avenue all the way to capitol hill and the pentagon, we have not heard the last of the infighting. buzz feed's washington bureau

chief john stanton is here to make some sense of it. good day, sir. >> good to be here. >> let me start with this. this is a tough situation. the politics have been a part of the iraq debate since the beginning. it seems like what we're hearing both from the old bush folks who have popped up as well as some elements, not all, but some elements of the republican party, is a desire to relitigate the exit of this conflict, our exit, and potentially the surge while trying to avoid the original sin of going in. let me ask you on straight politics, is that a winning approach? >> i'm not sure. certainly anybody that follows politics it's been a little deceived, wolfowitz and some of these old hands that seem a bit discredited by the end of the bush administration suddenly reappear and start, you know, pointing fingers back at the obama administration to try to put this all on them. you know, i think at this point, you know, whether he likes it or not, president obama does own

this war, he does own sort of the situation that is rightfully -- >> when you say this war, i'm going to jump in. does he own the war that he's left? because the war there is a civil war. he clearly made a break with the past administration's policy to get out. >> he did, but this is happening on his watch. we've been involved in some manner throughout this entire civil war, you know, with advisers, american contractors there, so, you know, this is definitely sort of his reality. even if it's unfair as the guy that's running the country right now, it always sort of ends up falling in their lap, frankly, and it's a reality that i think the administration will have to come to terms with pretty quickly, especially as they make their decisions on what they want to do next. because i think those fights are going to be much bigger and have much longer term political consequences for them than sort of what's the current state of play. >> john, we heard a little bit from lindsey graham there many the intro. he was talking about how he sees the next 9/11 as coming from the region and he sees this result as inevitable. do you think those sorts of

scare tactics still have the same purchase with the american people that they once did? >> no, i don't. again, it's sort of odd to hear republicans sort of making this case while we're now creating a new batch of terrorists. >> such a charitable word. >> something like a lot of people on the left said ten years ago. but i do think that the public is just sofa teagued by being involved in wars and being involved in iraq in general that they there is a fairly high level of acceptance of -- there's a lot of bad things going on there, we don't want to become involved in it. i think still at this point these kind of arguments aren't having the kind of scare tactic like you say on the public that one might anticipate. >> john, you mentioned the return of some blasts from the past. we've had paul bremer back. people might remember as the bush administration's administrator in iraq who disbanded the iraqi army, not one of the best decisions we made in that process. he was on the "today" show this morning with some advice for

john kerry on what he thought should be done in iraq now. >> secretary kerry ought to be sent there right away and ought to stay there until he can get a broad, unified government that gives some confidence to the sunnis and curds that this is not just us supporting continued sectarian shiite government. >> the thing that's so curious about this to me is who cares what paul bremer thinks? we have one group talking act ex-bush administration officials trying to rehabilitate their image as people who got us into iraq and people like lindsey graham, kelly ayotte beating the drum before the bush administration for action in iraq. is this something that people who are the future of the republican party, people who might be running for president in 2016, do they have eagerness to pick this fight or is this people who are directly invested in the bush administration record? >> you know, i think certainly, you know, brerm or judith miller, these kind of folks coming out of the woodwork are definitely doing some rehabilitation of their own

image, i think. and i think that the positions that lindsey graham or john mccain are taking are not necessarily those that a lot of the sort of people that we're see right now running for president on the republican side are going to take. i don't think you're going to see, for instance, rand paul come out and really get aggressive and hawkish. he's all been an isolationist necessarily but certainly someone who does not become someone who's militarily involved in these conflicts. there are those of the republican party, think of jeb bush, chris christie, that may find middle ground between those two extremes where they believe there is some kind of agreement, not the level of mccain or ayotte but not the disengagement that libertarians want. >> yon, these sort of situations are so important to me. when we're arguing in america about our policy debate, those are super important, but they're not always about american lives and foreign lives in the balance in a very intimate and intense

sort of way. and politicizing these sort of moments and sort of adding a lot of political noise to the commander in chief's decision matrix seems to me to be extremely dangerous and extremely selfish. >> yeah, that's been sort of the -- i think the oddest thing frankly about the fwush folks coming out of retirement to sort of talk about these things because it does seem like an odd moment to try to come out and make yourself look like you were actually making good decisions ten years ago or whatever. but i do think that the white house and the people on the hill that are going to be directly involved in some of these decisions are able to walk and chew gum at the same time occasionally. these kind of foreign policy matters, one of the few times they've demonstrated the ability to do that. i would hope at least they could sort of fight on this political side with one hand but actually figure out the detail policy on the other without it conflicting too much. >> yeah, and we often talk about obama's political legacy at home being obamacare, most certainly

leaving iraq is his legacy abroad and that's now contested. we'll see where it unfolds from here. john stanton, thanks for your time today. up next, a look at other political stories driving the week, emergency elections to pick mr. cantor's replacement as majority leader but what does it mean for the democrats? one leader sounding off and so will we e. that's next. (music) defiance is in our bones. defiance never grows old. citracal maximum. calcium citrate plus d. highly soluble, easily absorbed. so we made our own commercial to tell you why. chex makes seven gluten free flavors. like cinnamon, honey nut, and chocolate. when you find something this good, you want to spread the word. [ all ] we love chex!

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old. >> indeed one of the greatest. we turn back to politics. eric cantor's loss last week may have swung the door wide open for democrats. gop nominee david pratt has no political or campaign experience and democrats think that there's outside chance they could turn is seventh district blue. naturally you would think there would be plenty of tons for dems to make new house districts. congressional approval is at 16%. although some, including me, think how is it even that high? meanwhile, satisfaction with the country's direction sits at a lonely 23%. the national mood is throw the bums out! so how can the house dems take advantage of that? howard dean has an op-ed out today telling dems just how to do that. the formeredness chair said everything is local and boots on the ground can beat the gop's big money machine. let's take it to the table. everything is local, ari. that is the big take-away from

the dean op-ed, which we have not fully been aware of except entirely. but the thing that jumped out at me, he said base support wins elections unless you drive it out of the mainstream. so, yes, the republicans have an activated fringe which is driving their agenda off a cliff but the democrats don't have that. we don't have a left that is driving us outside or driving dems outside of the mainstream and making it hard to get elections. so i'm not quite sure if there's a parallel with what they're calling the sort of new nihilism on the right. the one thing that i think cantor suffered from that folks have not mentioned is we're in the postearmark era, right, and when you can't put a bridge or a new road or what have you in your community, then you can't easily say to folks, hey, look, that's what i did. so the value of leadership is lesser for a person in that sort of position. >> that's something often said in politics, if you like it, you

should have put a bridge on it. >> i say that all the time. thanks for bringing that up. >> you got it. >> i think eric cantor, we talk about immigration, talk about the issues that were raised in that campaign, i really think he suffered from something much more basic, which is that people lost trust in who he actually was. you know, he would go and pretend to be in line with the tea party but he was also getting tons of cricks from wall street, from big business. he would, you know, blow up a deal between boehner and obama and then on this other thing he would side with boehner and seem to be sort of trying to be in the governing wing of the republican party. and i think voters just looked at him and said we don't trust you, we don't like you, we don't want to see you here anymore. there is a lesson there for dems in that because that is not, you know, politicians being inauthentic and untrustworthy, not only suffered on the republican side. >> sure. >> so i think that piece, people underestimate how important it is that if you're going to be for immigration, be for immigration and explain it.

if you're going to be against it, be against it and explain it, but don't try to have it both ways. voters really dislike someone they can't trust. >> i think that's a lesson that politicians on both sides of the aisle mostly have learned. the reason cantor lost is so surprising, that most of these republican politicians who have base problems, who have concerns with some conservative voters about whether they're conservative enough, they've mostly been able to make that sale. if you look at john boehner who's been much more consistent than cantor was, who's done more things that should have annoyed the conservative base, he walked to a win in his primary because he's connected to his district, convinced people that' he is genuine and of that place and also -- >> people wanted the establishment in the governing wing of the gop party showed up for him because they know that's who he is. >> he also had support of toe lowe cal tea party groups in his district. blocking and tackling of constituency services, his office wasn't engaged enough in the district. you can't get people a bridge anymore like you used to be able

to but you can help people who say i need a passport in three days, my grandmother hasn't gotten her social security check. howard dean is basically saying democrats needed to be in a position to capitalize on this. but in the rare event when something like this hams so you have resources in the district and managed to beet bate whoever beat eric cantor in an election like this, two years later the republicans will nominate somebody normal and take the seat right back. republicans learned this experience over the last few years through a couple of fluke, won elections in places like new orleans and honolulu, and we're very excited about that. what hay found if you're not running against a democrat who got caught with $80,000 in his freezer you can't win an election -- >> even with wave elections and with partisanship as it is, as an incumbent, if you can get in the seat, you still have a much better chance of holding the seat than you do of getting kicked out, even in a tough district. >> that is true and i want to hear from you of course but in this sort of world, in the current redistricting environment that you have, when you build a district that is super red, there's only room to

the right of you and that's part of what he fell victim to. >> when he redistricted in 2010, they thought adding some of those rural districts would help him. >> make it safe for him. >> larger point, so often the professional practitioners of politics think of it as this sort of science. it's not a science. it's human affairs and it changes quickly. i think there's a little bit of this saying here's the formula, the number, why this wasn't going to happen, he fell victim to that because we eno tuesday morning eric cantor was meeting lobbyists fund-raising for future campaigns while literally losing one that morning. >> in d.c. >> in d.c. and we know that the democrats and republicans and the media write off certain races and make certain assumptions. to me that's why this is a great story. whether you like eric cantor or dave brat or beneath teshgs idea that a few thousand people, not through prediction, model, a lot of fancy talk but through action

can get out there and change the calculus, and now we're going to have a new number two, that's what makes politics so interesting. >> i think this race is good for democracy, period. >> what you saw there is the political discourse and silverization becomes a word. >> we can all be nouns if we try hard enough. >> so glad you're back. up next, the new ground zero in the fight for human rights. avo: waves don't care what age you are. take them on the way you always have.

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restrictions in the country. republican state representative john becker's bill proposes a ban on insurance coverage for abortion without exception for rape, incest, or even if a mother's life is in jeopardy. becker's bill also aims to redefine abortion banning coverage for iuds and potentially other forms of birth control he maintains are tantment to abortion because they prevent implantation. "this is just a personal view. i'm not a medical doctor." that's pretty clear. in our new cosmopolitan article, our next guest reports on a hotbed of abortion reichs restrictions. here to talk about what it means there and for the rest of the country is the senior political writer at cosmopolitan.com. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> why is ohio on the front lines here and pushing the most aggressive abortion restrictions in the country? >> ohio has been on the front lines of the abortion battles for a while. but because it is a purple, moderate state it's been flying

under the radar. a two 20-week ban in ohio passed several years ago and it wasn't until last summer when there was a filibuster of the 20-week ban in texas that those laws got a lot of attention. ohio passed a law more than a decade ago that was a precursor to the admitting privileges laws we're now seeing contested in alabama, texas, mississippi, wisconsin. ohio is one of first states to really focus on heartbeat laws, which would have outlawed abortion as early as six weeks. so you have a strong anti-choice presence in ohio and they've really kind of tested things out, realizing that because it's not a red state, because it's kind of expected, the national media doesn't latch on to anti-choice. >> nbc did a poll last year about 20-week abortion restrictions onld found there wasn't a majority on either side but more people said they reported such a restriction than opposed it. a lot of people who call themselves pro-life are in favor of certain kinds of legal abortion and those who call themselves pro-choice are in

favor of certain restrictions. given that there's a lot of people who believe there should be certain restrictions on abortions, how dwuz one make the case those in ohio are the wrong restrictions to be imposed? moo what pro-life movement in ohio has done is kind of a death by a thousand cuts approach, chipping away little by little. thun of these laws by themselves sound all that egregious. but when you put them together they really create an environment where abortion is almost impossible to get. so in ohio today the last clinic in toledo is facing closure. and two clinics in cincinnati minor league close. if those two clinks close, cincinnati will be the largest metropolitan area in the u.s. without an abortion provider. that's very, very scary. and that really is because of the cumulative fekt of all of these small laws that individual voters might say, all right, that sounds reasonable or this sounds rnlable but put them together and the outcome is that women no longer have this fum constitutional right. >> so when women lose that fundamental constitutional right, part of what happens is

they end up traveling to nearby states, middle class women have the opportunity to do that. quite easily working class women have a very difficult time getting in a car and going six hours, whatever, taking a day off from work for doing this sort of thing, or women tend to go to unsafe abortion providers, less than professional abortion providers. are we seeing a rise in the number of folks who are traveling to other states and thus incurring other sorts of penalties or engaging in unsafe providers? >> definitely. in ohio you're seeing women cross state lines and that's been the case for several years. i was just in texas in the rio grande valley where abortion rights have been restricted substantially and heard stories about women buy eight abortion pills from local flea marks, going to mexico to procure abortions there, even drinking a hot beer because they've heard that will induce an abortion. all of these kind of real horror stories because as you said we've become a kun oi of have and have-nots when it comes to

abortion, women who are on the cusp and relatively economically stable have access. women in the south and vast sections of the midwest especially if they're working class or poor no longer have access and that's not how the constitution is supposed to work, fundamental human rights are supposed to work. >> if you're middle class, one thing to drive across the state border or if it's an inconvenience. if you're poor or working class it may be an impossibility. i was interested in your article and struck by it. abortion obviously very divisive and political issue. what made cosmo want to tack this will problem? >> cosmo is a women's magazine and we focus on a female audience. cosmo is a very long tradition of covering especially sexual health issues and right now i think we're realizing that in the world we live in, especially online and on a website like cosmopolitan.com where you have such an active female audience, you really can't exist without some sort of political component. you know, young women today,

yes, they're interested in hair and makeup tips and sex tips and the kind of usual cosmo content but they're also interested in reproductive rights, sexual health, quality e quality and sexual justice issues. >> i couldn't agree more. thanks for explaining this to us. up next, do dads matter? nah, not so much. >> what? >> we did. on this monday after father's day, new science makes you look at dad in a whole new light. time for "your business entrepreneur of the week. when kevin knight left the army he decided he wanted to help other veterans assimilate into civilian life so he started knight solutions, the contracting firm hires returning veterans to maintain and renovate military cemeteries. if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is

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dad. >> you may have seen that sentimental ad by dove just in time for father's day. we hope all the fathers are enjoying their new ties, grills, and other things. underscoring the importance of dad, there's a fascinating new body of research about the role fathers play in their lives. the assumption has long been that mothers matter more to their children's health and survival. but the understanding of the biological and psychological impacts of dads is changing dramatically. pall ray burn is the author of "do fathers matter?" what did you find about how fathers are shaping their children's adult lives? >> there are all kinds of bonds between fathers and their kids that i think we never suspected

until people started to look very recently. for example, during pregnancy, just to give you one that i like, you would expect that this is a time when fathers are really on the sidelines, what are you going to do, you can't get in there, nothing is happening. you haven't met this person yet. but it turns out there's a real connection and in a very important way. so when a father spends time with his partner during pregnancy, his hormones undergo a radical shift so, his testosterone drops and prolack tin, which rises in mothers to facilitate nursing, rises in men. we don't know why that is. there's big changes. the thinking is that men start their lives as competitors, you know, mate seekers, and once they've gone through that thing and it's time to reproduce, buy ylg has prepared them to change -- >> so the sympathy weight gain is a real thing. >> it's a real thing. but beyond that are these hidden things that really prepare a father to be a more nurturing person. >> that time is powerful. i remember reading a book to my son, the same book every day,

through the second trimester. through the third one i said forget it, it's not working. in the delivery room i started repeating and he's looking at me like, "i heard this before." we had that instant connection right there. talk about some of the things that fathers provide that mothers don't. >> well, so, here's another good example that i like. language development. so in families are changing, needless to say, but in a lot of families mothers still spend more time with the kids so, you might think that mothers would have more influence on language development. so we're talking from about 15 months old to about 3 when they can start to do reasonably well on their own. it turns out mothers have little or no effect on kids' language development. fathers have a profound effect on kids' language development. the thinking is that fathers use a broader vocabulary, they -- if they don't spend as much time with the kids they're not quite as tuned into what the kids know so they march right along and it stretches the kids and pulls them forward. that's kind of cool already. but the implications are the kid

has an easier transition to school, which can be a tough point for a lot of kids, does better in elementary school, has fewer behavioral problems, which you wouldn't necessarily link to language, but there is a link, and does better on through school as a result. so even suggestions that these kids are more socially adept like all of you as adults because they have this good start from their fathers. >> sort of on the flip side, i feel like a lot of moms are kind of racked with guilt and feel like any problem their child has is a direct reflection on them and their skill as a mother. do you think that's partly a result of ignoring the role of the father? by doing that, are we placing all of the burden on the mother so to speak? >> i think that's right. unfortunately i did not write a book that's going to relieve mother os guilt. i wish i had. so, yeah, that's right. fathers have an equal role to play that's very important. i thought you were going to go to single mothers and what about single mothers. fathers are so important, what happens with single mothers?

i had a mother in my child's element kri school that came up the other say dey and said i want to read your book, what should i do? there's an answer. bring in a father figure. fathers do all tease these of t for kids, father figure, a brother, uncle -- >> should be male? >> right. so they can do the things a biological father can do. >> what about in a gay couple? >> we don't knows much about gay couples. the results show that gay and lesbian couples, their kids turn out just fine. i didn't get to write about it because i didn't get to it. straight families, despite how smart we are and clever we are, we tend to fall into the stereo types that have been laid down for us. in gay an lesbian couples, they tend to invent their own. one parent might do some of the things a father would do and mother would do and you know -- >> talk about what sons and

daughters need differently from dad. >> most of the things that i found in the research apply to sons and daughters. but there's very different things. again, in the general sphere of weird powerful connections between fathers and kids, it turns out when fathers are not present, daughters go into puberty much earlier in their lives. they are also more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior and more likely to get pregnant as teenagers and we know where that leads, which is not to a good place. now why should fathers -- absence -- this could happen in divorced families why that should influence girls' hormones in this pro found maturational stage is not entirely clear but the intelligence speculation is that subliminally the daughter senses insecurity if the father is not around. her biology responds by moving

to get her into a more security situation, namely her own family sooner. >> i was struck by that how the effects aren't just psychological but biological and the psychological component, where they would ask girls to recall either favorable or unfavorable stories about their fathers and ask them about risky sexual behavior, if they recalled a negative thought, more inclined to risky behavior. how do we adjust for that? is this about sending clearer messaging in order to compensate? some couples do get divorced. >> a lot. yeah. >> what do we do to compensate? >> it gets back to the thing of trying to have a father figure. a lot of these questions there's no clear answer to. we just figured out there's this issue. if the father is not there bringing in a father figure is one thing. but we need to do more to sort this out and see what's going on. it's very interesting about that thing when daughters were asked to reflect on something their father had said that they

thought was unkind, they changed their behavior. it's a real powerful. >> very fascinating. >> here's a parenting question for you, to spank or not to spank. that's the question and tour'e has the answer next. [ female announcer ] there's a gap out there.

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if father's day is okay, kids don't take a break from testing you on father's day. arguments and meltdowns happen, this is suppose to be a special day and we're in this fight, what am i doing wrong as a parent? you wouldn't think two little cuties like this would test your patience more than anything you dealt with, but there you are furious at your kid for bad

behavior. maybe if i just spank them, then everything would magically be okay, right? i could beat them and poof the bad behavior would disappear, right? but i don't because before we got pregnant my wife made me promise we would not spank our kids. that was revolutionary for me because i got spanked growing up, got spanked plenty. the information parents had about spanking at that time was a reasonable if not necessary parenting technique. kids said spare the rod, spoil the child and many americans believe that. a survey found the majority of parents across all ethnic groups spank at some point. various studies have found over 90% of parents in america spank. this in spite of the american psychological association saying, parents and caregivers should reduce and eliminate their use of any physical punishment as a disciplinary

measure. and strongly recommending against spanking. it may have a powerful short term impact but over the long term it causes more problems than it solves. for me spanking was frightening and made me behave out of fear and how to respond to a conflict. it sent a message that i did something wrong but the way to deal with a problem is through violence. the noted psychologist says spanking does little to develop a sense of conscious but fosters the idea that they only need to be good if someone will find out. fear of getting caught doing the wrong thing is very different from learning to behave because it's the right thing to do. studies show the long-term impact of spafrpging includes higher rates of aggression, more likely to use violence against a spouse, more prone to depression and more likely to commit suicide. you might be saying, i got spanked and turned out fine but you'll never know how you would have turned out if you hadn't been spanked. you don't know the full long

term impact of someone larger than you relied on for everything, purposely inflicting pain on you. that may have impacted you in ways you don't realize. it is replicated in the adult world? when your boss is upset, do they beat you? probably not. when your spouse angers you, do you beat them? if so, you're a monster. in america it's legal to beat your kids as long as you don't leave a mark. that's the line separating illegal child abuse from legal spanking, whether it leaves a mark. it seems ash trar in a world where it occurs with a belt or paddle or switch from a tree. 37 nations banned spanking and american people would be better off if we demanded more patience of ourselves and talked to them and really understood that spanking is bad parenting. spare the rod, and save the child. that does it for "the cycle." "now" starts now. >> what you absolutely need to know to understand iraq's

dissent into renewed chaos. it's monday, june 16th and this is "now". >> this could be the most decisive week in iraq's modern history. >> the battle for baghdad may be on the horizon. >> chaos is spreaded across the middle east. >> al qaeda linked militants are prepared to take the fight to the heart of baghdad. >> making claims of mass executions. >> the latest in a campaign against northern and western iraq to the doorstep of baghdad. >> a city ha has taken its gun out and locked and loaded it. >> it's almost inconceivable. >> john kerry said president obama is viewing a range of options. >> the u.s. is groping to understand what a sensible strategy is. >> iran may be partners in this fight. >> iraq might be the biggest foreign policy crisis the president has faced. >> a sectarian conflict, not simply a government that is fighting against an invading