civilians. and more political turmoil in baghdad. i'm ari melbur. we begin in baghdad. prime minister nuri al maliki is refusing to step down today. the new president has nominated a new prime minister. he's a shiite and a member of maliki's own party. maliki's supporters argues al badi does not have the legitimacy to lead the nation. mal mal malay -- the sunnis, kurds, as well as the u.s. want him gone. now secretary of state john kerry saying the u.s. is, quote, absolutely squarely behind president masum. >> we believe that the government formation process is

critical in terms of sustaining the stability and calm in iraq, and our hope is that mr. maliki will not stir those waters. >> also news today, warnings about a potential military coup. military forces rolling around baghdad today in the green zone. the other big development in the u.s. perspective today, officials tell nbc the cia is now directly arming kurdish forces in the north. that is a major shift in how the u.s. helps the kurds. previously, it only funneled those weapons through the iraqi government. with the help of u.s. air strikes, the kurdish peshmerga has driven out isis from two northern towns, but isis is armed with u.s.-made tanks and humvees they've stolen from iraqi government. those kinds of weapons helped them capture another town outside baghdad. all this as humanitarian efforts

get an international bump from the u.k. and france. so far the u.s. has delivered 74,000 meals and 15,000 gallons of fresh drinking water. u.s. central command released this night vision video of the aid drop. we have the iraq story covered for you on the battlefield. what it means for our president and what many used to call the war on terror. we're going to begin with nbc's duncan golestani on the ground in erbil. duncan, thanks for joining us. how is the situation there changing given these air strikes? >> reporter: well, it's been a really big change compared to last week. it's turned the tide slightly more in favor of the kurdish forces fighting isis. last week they were put on to back foot. the peshmerga, the kurdish forces, had to retreat slightly under this isis onslaught. but over the weekend, we've seen them push forward. that is because of u.s. air support. so yesterday we know from the

u.s. military that u.s. airplanes fired down on an isis convoy, which was heading for a peshmerga line of defense. a line of defense defending erbil. we also know that over the weekend the kurds were able to retake two important towns, important because they're about half an hour away from here. so very close. but also because they're on the transit route. again, in those two towns, the kurds were able to do it because of u.s. fire power helping them out. now the question is, can the kurds hold on to that territory? can they perhaps push even further. u.s. air support is also having another effect in that unfolding humanitarian disaster that i'm sure you know about. the yazidi people, the minority religious community, they've been forced up into mountains of

sinjar because isis fighters believe wrongly that they're devil worshippers and have driven them from their homes. for those that have been left behind, there have been claims of horrific deaths, of women being taken as slaves, some people being buried alive. so tens of thousands of yazidi people have gone up into the mountains looking for safety. but of course, they've been up there for a week in the scorching sun. dehydrated, starving, many of them dying there. but over the week, peshmerga were able to open a small route so a few thousand of the yazidi people were able to get out and reach kurdish iraq, bringing with them horror stories. so there's been that positive difference, if you like, from the air support over the weekend. but you can never underestimate isis. they're a formidable force. they just keep popping up on different front lines. today we've been hearing about the town of jalala, which is

about an hour away from baghdad. fierce fighting there between isis and the kurds over the last few weeks. just yesterday an isis suicide bomber killed some kurds. today they finally took the town. lots of change going on around the map. the next thing really too look out for is to see what kind of a difference getting more ep withes from the united states makes for the peshmerga. it is something that the kurdish leaders have wanted because they are so outgunned by isis. isis, of course, took all that weaponry, heavy armored duties that iraqi army had. much of it is u.s. made. so the peshmerga have been heavily outgunned. they'll be hoping getting those weapons direct from the united states makes a difference. back to you. >> duncan golestani reporting from iraq. thank you. joining us at the table, michael kay.

good to see you as always. what is your view based on what we know? >> i think the strikes are a short-term solution to a long-term problem. we look at the center of gravity of isis. what do you have to target within isis? what makes isis so potent? the thing we came up with is ideolo ideology. it's an incredibly hard thing to target. it's something you have to take a longer term approach to. now, if you look at how that might fuel the ideology in terms of air strikes, you have potential collateral. we've seen this with assad. assad in syria using the barrel bombs has created all sorts of collateral and fueled the insurgency. it's fueled people wanting to join isis to overthrow the government. then you look at maliki, who's a

divisive prime minister. all the u.s. is doing with these air strikes is fueling that notion of maliki being that divisive prime minister. so we will not solve this problem with bomb and bullets until we solve syria. what happened in afghanistan was we went in there after 9/11 and did a formidable job in targeting the al qaeda camps. all that happened is al qaeda ran across the border into pakistan, which is where we found erbil, and they stayed there until they regrouped. until we do the same with syria, you're going to have isis on the back foot. they'll just go back into syria. al baghdadi is in aleppo. they'll regroup when the u.s. have left. >> so michael, understanding this is a long-term problem, but when we look at the military operations right now, we saw the u.k. and france decided to join our humanitarian efforts. so far prime minister david cameron has said he's not going to get any further involved.

but there seems to be quite a bit of pressure on him already within britain to do something more. what do you think the likelihood is that the u.k. will kind of join in our special relationship here and join us in iraq pushing back on isis? >> i think the u.k. will always support the u.s. in any military action it will take. that's the great partnership we've had ever since 2003. i think that relationship will remain. i think you've got to look at this in terms of whenever there's a humanitarian problem, people are quick to try and react. however, if you look across the border in syria, the united nations has become paralyzed and it's one of the biggest humanitarian problems known in contemporary history. i'd look to syria, look at what's going on in iraq. i'd say to ourselves, we need to take a comprehensive approach to this problem. we need to understand how we

target the real central gravity of isis, which is occurring right in aleppo. that's where he's fuelling this insurgency. >> that's absolutely right. we've all seen these chilling videos of isis rolling around on these tanks, our tanks by the way, with big machine gun and the black flag they showcase everywhere. the black flag has now come down from tanks, which makes me realize these guys are not stupid. they know we're now targeting them and this is a way to blend in with civilians. should we see that as a sign that they are now a little bit frightened by what we are doing or that they're just really smart and we should be concerned? >> i mean, it will maybe stymy the flood flowing from the wound, but it's not going to heal the wound. we're seeing short-term repercussions. we may in the very short term, this week we may see isis halt and not actually get into erbil. but what about next month? what about in six months' time?

that's the approach that the west has to take to this. to rather than keep throwing guns, bombs, rockets and mortars at this problem, what they have to do is take a step back and look at it holistically and go, we tried this in afghanistan. we're just about to leave afghanistan after being there for ten years. personally, i don't think we're any better off than when we first started. people will argue against that, but you see how resurgent the taliban are. >> people think of a deeper involvement, to the point abby made. let's listen to a point that came up yesterday. >> they are now looking at a force that is using american equipment that we left in iraq for the iraqi army against people we now want to protect. doesn't that speak to a need for the u.s. to be pretty careful about who it gives weapons to? >> well, obviously isis in the last few weeks, while we've been

waiting for a change from maliki, they now control the two major dams in iraq. they have the possibility of flooding parts of the country and cutting off energy. meanwhile, isis is moving towards erbil. the president says that he's going to protect american troops and try to prevent humanitarian disasters. that's the extent of his policy. there is no policy. >> senator mcchrystain right to this belies the lack of a larger policy on behalf of the obama administration? >> i don't see eye to eye usually with the senator, but i think absolutely. foreign policy is lacking. just to point of providing weapons, we are not learning from history. the cia applied billions of dollars to the moou ja done a.

the narcotics that we fueled in order to drug the russians out of afghanistan, that was used and it used to this day by the taliban to bankroll the taliban. we have to look at the consequences of the short-term actions we're taking now because they'll come back and bite us. it bit us in afghanistan and l do the same in iraq. >> lieutenant colonel michael kay, thank you. let's bring in live from iraq former u.s. deputy undersecretary of defense paul brinkley. paul, is isis more compromised today than it was last week? >> i don't know that i would describe isis as necessarily compromised, but i would say that the actions, u.s. air strikes in concert with renew aggression by peshmerga, have certainly arrested the momentum isis was building. that was a momentum really leading to a spiral of

humanitarian and strategic disaster here in iraq. so that's a positive step. however, as colonel kay indicated, it's a very early beginning in establishing what needs to be a comprehensive, multifaceted strategy to re-establish order in places that frankly now are subject to chaos that can only be described as horrific. >> paul, the cia is now arming the kurds in this fight against isis where they are highly outgunned. what the kurds really want is for us to send our own troops on the ground to help them fight. we just heard from the pentagon that these air strikes are actually unlikely at this point to have a real effect on isis capabilities. do you see a situation in which we will be sending troops on the ground? is that realistic? >> well, here in erbil, i haven't heard that from any of the kurdish officials. i've met with several of them

here just today. i've actually heard quite the opposite. that they do believe that this is going to be a long, difficult challenge. they also fully understand that the american people are in no way supporting a re-establishment of troops here in iraq. more importantly, and this was clearly stated and i've seen it on multimillion media outlets today, that they do not, in fact, expect or desire american troops on ground. they would like to see some of the advisory capacity that's been placed in baghdad, some of that expanded to erbil and the kurdistan raegion of iraq to hep buttress the leadership structures within peshmerga and as a sustained air asset campaign can be put in place to help support peshmerga rolling back these forces. that's what i have heard from kurdish leaders. i don't sense anywhere here an expectation of a renewal of american boots on the ground, so to speak, in this conflict. >> paul, given your experience at the pentagon, what else can

the u.s. do tangibly to deal with maliki if he's refusing to go anywhere despite all the pressure, internal and external, at this point. >> i think that, you know, we're in an unfortunate situation and that this has been a four-year steady degradation of behavior by the baghdad government that's led us to this place. you know, colonel kay was talking earlier about lessons learn and making sure we don't make mistakes. i think there's lots of lessons learn we can look at over the last four years and how we've interacted with the maliki regime and ensured that it has demonstrated the values we sacrifice so much to try to establish here. i think in the current state we've played this pretty well in baghdad and not trying to be overt, not trying to force a decision, simply letting the circumstances become clear to the shia leadership within the national alliance. that situation is already clear to the kurdish leadership and sunni leadership. i think now we're seeing this transition begin that is

necessary to a government structure that is more inclusive and that can begin to draw a particularly sunni and kurdish leadership back into a unity government at which point you've got the base foundation put in place to start building the strategy colonel kay was talking about to reverse this degradation and security that's taken place recently. >> former u.s. deputy undersecretary of defense paul brinkley joining us from erbil. thank you so much. up next from these violent clashes in the north to the political in fighting in iraq, why some are concerned about a potential military coup. plus, how big is the threat from isis to all of us here at home? we're going to ask counterterrorism expert evan coleman. "the cycle" rolls on with your breaking coverage of the crisis in iraq.

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back now with breaking coverage and growing fears of a coup in iraq. at this hour, u.s. officials continue to pressure iraqi prime minister nuri al maliki to step down for the good of the country already overrun with violence. today the party named a new prime minister. but maliki, who's seeking a third term as prime minister, is defiantly refusing to go. the clock is ticking for a solution. mr. al badi has only 30 days to form a new, inclusive government. joining us now is max boot, senior fellow at the counsel sill on foreign relations. thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> obviously sh th is a very fluid situation today. last thing this country needs, already overrun with military crises, is to have a political crisis on top of it. how do you think this is going to play out? does al badi have any chance of forming a new coalition government against the backdrop

of so much uncertainty? >> i think al badi does have a decent chance. i think most sides in iraq have gotten tired of nuri al maliki. at this point, pretty much the only person who still wants maliki to be prime minister maliki himself. there are even rumors that iranians are withdrawing their support. i think if we can make the transition, that will be very good news for the future of iraq because you really need to have a new prime minister who can form a unify government who can reach out to the sunnis and heal the divides in iraqi politics. maliki has proven himself completely incapable of doing that. he needs to go quietly. >> max, thomas freeman was on "morning joe" this morning. he said there are two realistic outcomes. we either have to accept the fact we're going to be over there for years and years or accept the fact that forcing a democracy on other nations is

actually not the best outcome. here's what he had to say. >> the two most successful arab spring nations are the two countries we've had nothing to do with. tunisia and kurdistan. why did they succeed? we helped the kurds early on, but they basically made it themselves. >> i have to agree with him here. it's hard to see at this point a middle of the road approach being the most successful. what are your thoughts there? >> well, in the first place, we've done an awful lot to midwife the success of the kurdish region. we need to protect that success from isis. we don't have to have iraq as being this model showplace of democracy. that has not been our objective and should not be our object i have. what we need to have, however s a government in baghdad that can move over the sunni tribes away from terrorists in isis. as long as you have a regime that looks like it's a sectarian shiite regime, you're going to drive the sunnis into the arms of al qaeda, and you're going to drive the shiites into the arms of iranian-backed militias and

have the situation you have today with a terrorist state that sprawls across iraq and syria. that's a nightmare. that's the last thing we want. so the solution is not some kind of perfect jefr sewn yan democracy. we just need a slightly more inclusive government that can reach out to sunnis. and with american help and ally help can take effective military action against these terrorists before they can consolidate their position in the heart of the middle east. >> max, while you were answering that question, we showed a map of iraq that had three separate colors showing where the three groups of people -- there it is -- who make up iraq. it made me think of vice president biden, wondering whether he was right, wondering whether the united states should have pushed for partitioning iraq years ago. >> partitioning iraq is not an answer for anything. in the first place t raises questions about who's going to control cities like baghdad,

which have substantial sunni and shiite populations. and under the current circumstances, if we're partitioning iraq, what you're effectively doing is seating the sunni portions of the country, all of western and northern iraq, to isis control. and you're seeding the shiite portions in southern iraq to iranian control. that's not a good outcome. that's the last thing we want. i'm actually agnostic about how many states there ought to be in the territory of iraq. the kurdish regime, for example, is a really stable, moderate, prosperous government, which i would be fine having that as a separate government. but however many regimes there are in the territory of iraq, we need to make sure none of them is a sponsor of terrorism, none of them is a regime that commits genocide in the way that isis has been committing against the yazidis and christians. that's the real issue. it's not how many governments there are but the nature of those regimes. right now the nature of the isis regime should be utterly unacceptable to civilized world. >> max boot, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with

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built for business. cycling now, tensions are running high in the st. louis suburb of ferguson again today after saturday's shooting death of an unarmed teen killed by a police officer. this afternoon protesters marched peacefully, but that was not the scene last night when a vigil erupted into looting and violence. nbc's ron allen is in missouri for us live. ron, we've seen protests throughout the day. the family is expected to speak tonight. give us a sense of what you're hearing on ground there. >> reporter: well, i think, jonathan, there's a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, and a lot of people wondering how this young man, michael brown, could be dead after this apparent confrontation with police. we're in a neighborhood where a lot of the violence and looting happened last night. that's why you see behind me an automotive store where they're trying to repair the glass one does that were shattered.

there were buildings throughout this intersection doing the same thing. but the big questions have to do with the case itself. why did the officer shoot and kill this young man? who is the officer, for that matter? we don't know his name. we know he's a six-year veteran. he's on administrative paid leave, but the police are not releasing his identity. also, it's unclear exactly what happens happening. we believe brown and a companion were walking down a street and somehow the cop stopped them for some reason. then the stories start to go off in different directions. one account has brown physically assaulting the police officer in some way. that's what the police are saying, that he physically assaulted him and that the officer apparently was responding to that when he fired. we don't know how many times he was shot. there are reports he may have been shot as many as six or seven times or more. that is unclear. so people are trying to find answers. there's a meeting later on this evening with the parents of michael brown. the naacp in this community is having a gathering later. just trying to figure out how

something like this could happen to a young man with so much promise. he was a high school graduate, going to college for first time today. he was here visiting his grandmother. just an unfortunate and terrible set of events. people just trying to figure out how this could happen while investigation goes forward. >> all right. nbc's ron allen in missouri. thank you so much for that. turning now to the investigation into that deadly nascar crash. officials are asking the public to turn over any more video that might exist of the incident. police are examining video they already have of the crash involving nascar champion tony stewart. his car struck and killed 20-year-old driver kevin ward jr., who got out of his car and on to the track, as you can see here, after it collided with stewart's car. we are not showing the moment of impact here. stewart pulled out of a nascar event on sunday. while stewart is known for having a temper, authorities are treating the crash as a tragic incident. on the "today" show this morning, stewart's friend jeff

burton agreed. >> tony's not the kind of guy who would intentionally hit someone. he's heartbroken. the kevin ward family is heartbroken. honestly, it's a heartbreaking tragedy. there's nothing good from this. tony is just -- he's really having a tough time with this, as everybody is. >> back now to our breaking news coverage of iraq as air strikes continue to rain own on isis, the pentagon held a briefing just about 30 minutes ago on the latest developments. >> we assess that u.s. air strikes in northern iraq have slowed isil's operational tempo and temporarily disrupted their advances toward the province of erbil. however, these strikes are unlikely to affect isil's overall capabilities or its operations in other areas of iraq and syria. >> and now some charge that the threat of isis has actually found its way here. we've learned of a north carolina man being held on weapons charges for being a

suspected isis sympathizer. there was no evidence he was plotting any actual attacks in the u.s. but he reportedly sent messages on twitter pledging his support while he was overseas. how concerned should we be here on u.s. soil? evan coleman joins us. good day to you. >> good day. >> let's start with the basics. there are people in the world who want to attack us because of who we are. and there are others who decide to attack us based on what we do. >> correct. >> when you look at isis right now, how much more of a threat are they to western targets or the united states itself now that we are directly attacking them? >> i think it's really marginal. it's important to understand that the wave of individuals here in the united states who have been trying to join isis in iraq, that didn't start this week. it didn't start last week. in the first week of june the fbi arrested a 20-year-old guy in los angeles trying to board a flight from john wayne airport to turkey where he admitted freely to the fbi he was planning on joining isis. that was long before we ever launched air strikes or even contemplated launching air

strikes. this is not a problem that started yesterday or this week. it's a problem unfortunately that hasn't got an lot of attention. we're not talking about hundreds of people. we're not talking about thousands of people. it's in the dozens. but they come from communities that we don't anticipate them coming from. places like tampa, denver, colorado, los angeles, the east coast of the united states, north carolina. these are not considered to be hubs of al qaeda activity. and the people that are joining these movements, these are not individuals for the most part who are coming from the middle east. these are people who are converts, who some don't even speak arabic. one guy showed up with a couple hundred dollars of cash and started yelling, who's going to bring me to syria? this is the problem we're dealing with. these guys don't represent an effective fighting force on the ground. if they're train on how to build explosives and come back here with this mentality and ideology, 100% they're a very

serious threat. if there's any question about that, look to what happened just a few months ago in belgium. you had an individual who carried out an attack on the jewish museum in brussels. this individual, when he was arrested by french police, he was carrying an automatic weapon wrapped in the isis flag. he had been trained in syria by isis, and he did this in the name of isis. and there are others who want to do that as well. again, it's not hundreds, but even dozens, it's a real problem. >> so evan, let's talk about the capabilities of isis, the organization itself. we get the inevitable comparisons to al qaeda, right. and everybody says, oh, isis has more territory. they're better funded. they have better technology. but then also we start to hear some reports that maybe there's a bit of dysfunction inside the organization, that they're not quite as strategic, they're not creating these really long-term pinpoint kinds of plans. so where does the reality really lie and what kind of capability do they have to sort of threaten the global community? >> unfortunately, it's both. on the technical side, they're

much, much more heavily armed than the al qaeda factions we've come to know. just within the past few days, isis tweeted out photos of dozens of tanks and armored vehicles that they seized from the syrian army just over the border from iraq that they're sending over there. we never contemplated the idea of al qaeda having tanks. these guys have a full army right now. look, there's another side to this, that these folks are extremely radical. they have bizarre rules that nobody can seem to follow, including other islamists. and al qaeda itself doesn't agree with these folks. let's remember isis assassinated zawahari's personal envoy, the representative of al qaeda, killed in a suicide bombing by isis. no doubt they're deadly, and no doubt they're a problem. if you look back at history, a similar thing happened in algeria during the 1990s. you had the armed islamic group. they tried carrying out the hijacking of a french airliner. they were going to crash it into

paris. they murdered french monks. what ended up happening is even though they were the most influential group for a period of time, they really annoyed a lot of people. everyone turned against them, including ordinary algerian muslims. that's the hope here. right now what happens in iraq is that the sunni muslims we once convinced to fight alongside us against al qaeda, the sunni insurgents we were fighting that we convinced to turn to the right side, we can bring them back. we can convince them their best interest is not with al qaeda, it's not with isis, it's with a stable, hopefully moderate iraqi government in baghdad. >> right. that's hope for some sort of political solution. to your point, you're obviously dealing with some very serious operators when they're willing to go at al qaeda that deliberately. very helpful background information for us, evan coleman. thank you so much. up next, we'll get to the politics of it all. iraq has been the central political issue of our lifetime. democrats and republicans blasting the president's leadership abroad. but the gop may be helping the

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breaking news. we have just learned the president will speak on iraq at 4:45 this afternoon. president obama is monitoring the unfolding crisis in iraq from martha's vineyard. senior white house and national security officials are briefing the president there three times a day. you see him here with national security adviser susan rice. but the briefings are not quieting criticism from both sides of the aisle. nbc's senior white house correspondent chris jansing is traveling with the president on martha's vineyard. chris, is the focus of those conversations today on political crisis or the military one? >> well, clearly with his national security briefings, these are not political in nature. these are nuts and bolts, what's going on on the ground. there are two aspects to that. one is military. also, the internal politics and what they're focusing on right

now is what's going to happen to nuri al maliki. obviously, the president there has named a new prime minister. it's something that when we heard from the president he said very clearly needs to happen for the united states to move forward. they need to see this coalition government come together in such a way they feel they can really make some movement there. on the other hand, you have exactly what's going on, on ground. senior administration officials tell me they think what they're doing so far in the air has been effective. that they've been getting food and water to the people who are stranded up on the mountain. that they have a plan in place to try to get them down to create a safe passage. they've also some success in targeting certain isis compounds. having said that, you heard what the president had to say. that this is going to be open ended. it's impossible to say how long it's going to be. so hopefully when we hear from the president, what, less than an hour from now, we'll get a better indication of where he

feels both the military operation is and the internal political one inside iraq. >> chris jansing on martha's vineyard. thank you. as we look at the politics of the iraq crisis, look at these numbers. an approval rating of just 42%. and more than half the country saying we're on wrong track. miserable. yet, those are actually president george w. bush's numbers from september of 2006, just before the midterms of his final term when republicans were swept out of office and democrats captured the house and the senate and majority of governorships and state legislatures. but president bush's numbers are still higher than where we are now. president obama's approval at just 40%, two points lower than bush, and an astoundsing seven in ten say the country is on the wrong track. but there could be a silver lining here for democrats because the only thing that could stand in the way of a midterm sweep for republicans is, well, republicans. >> i predicted what was going to happen in iraq. >> this commander in chief has

no strategy. he has no vision. >> i'm so sick and tired of the same people complaining and moaning about this president not doing thing when is the president does things. instead of supporting him when we're at a critical moment in this nation's history. they've got to go on the sundaying and bitch and moan. >> joining us at the table is friend of the show and nbc news senior political reporter perry bacon. >> who will not be bitching and moaning. >> we talk about this being a silver lining for democrats. how much of a silver lining really is this? >> i don't think it's one at all. when you go to states -- i spend a lot of time traveling. people are not talking about foreign policy the way we are here. people are still concerned about the economy. if you notice the first thing obama says before any speech on foreign policy, it's we are not sending troops. that's what he wants to convey. the polls all show americans are just very weary of any intervention abroad, particularly one that involves

troops. the politics of this are not going to affect the midterms unless we send ground troops somewhere, which is one of the reasons why we will not be doing that. >> seems like the president can't do anything right these days. the republicans are upset when he doesn't do anything. when he does something, they're even more pissed off because he didn't do enough or it's his fault for even being in this situation. the sunday shows had a number of republicans. one was peter king. he said, what a weak leader. can you imagine winston churchill or roosevelt doing what he's doing. in politics, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. seems like no matter what obama does right now, he's seen as a weak leader. might as well play golf. every day hooeds be better off. . >> the republicans are particularly focused on attacking him on lots of things. i think the core of this is if you read obama's interview this weekend, there are a lot of events happening over the world, and america has a very limited ability to impact ends.

that's his argument essentially. he would argue he thinks it things will be happening in iraq whether we had a small force there or not. he said that on saturday, in fact. part of it is the republicans want a more interventionist president. even hillary clinton hinted at that in the interview with "the atlantic." she thinks we could be doing more to prevent the development of isis. the president's view is different about that. he came in office to kind of wind down america's role abroad. he's doing that. his approach is a much more limited one and much more cautious one. >> and to build on that, politics matters because it helps us answer questions. there are two political questions on iraq. should we have gone in? and should we have stayed? whether or not it was right to go in. this president answered both those questions in the view of the american public correctly. we should not have gone in because we were lied into war on the promise of wmds and hyped up claims around 9/11. given that mistake, sometimes you have to do a bad thing longer. but in this case at this time, given the status of forces agreement, no, we shouldn't have

stayed. the president was right on both those. that doesn't tell us anything on whether he's right, right now. many of us are concerned we are going back into an escalation type model that is risky. but i want to be clear about that. i want to play what you referenced, the president's remarks on saturday. because this is an important policy dismissal he did to his critics, many of whom are defenning their errors and their desire to pretends we should have more troops on the ground right now, which is not what anyone wants. take a listen. >> if they'd done all those things and we had troops there, the country wouldn't be holding together either. the only difference would be we'd have a bunch of troops on the ground that would be vulnerable. however many troops we had, we would have to now be reinforcing, i'd have to be protecting them, and we'd have a much bigger job. so that entire analysis is bogus and is wrong. but gets frequently pedaled around here by folks who oftentimes are trying to defend

previous policies that they themselves made. >> he should have said the words john and mccain. that's what he was referring to. he was criticizing the republicans who feel like we should get involved more and saying they're wrong. hillary clinton's interview happened before we decided to intervene the latest time on friday. i think that context is important only because it's being portrayed as they're having this big fight. i think they have disagreements, but we know they have disagreements. she's a more hawkish person than he is. >> perry bacon, thanks very for coming in. up next, the other crisis zone. you're looking at live pictures of the sky over gaza, where all sides are holding their breaths to see how long this latest cease-fire will hold.

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which means more growth for your business, and more jobs. it's not just business as usual. see how new york can help your business grow, at startup.ny.gov welcome back, it's just before 11:00 p.m. in gaza and the peace is continuing to hold for now. less than 24 hours in the latest cease-fire between hamas and israel, to give negotiators more time to hammer out a lasting truce. the agreement came after another day of deadly violence in gaza and southern israel on sunday. 2,000 palestinians and 67 israelis have been killed in this month-long conflict. is this the last chance to get a long-term truce? joining us now is former middle east adviser mark g insberg. i want to say it's the ninth cease-fire, but we lost count.

how important is egypt in all of this? >> first of all, there is hope for a longer term. i who believe that there's always got to be some hope in order to bring peace between these two people. let's remember the egyptians at this point in time have been trying to cobble together a cease-fire that while it doesn't accommodate hamas directly, it provides the framework to give gazans some relief from the block aid after giving the credit israel wants to deny it and creating the circumstances where there will be some sort of international observer force. they'll monitor the imports that are coming into gaza if the blockade is lifted to not permit to rebuild the terror infrastructure that was destroyed by israel. >> i want you to see something that was said this morning on "morning joe".

>> people got a glimpse of what the next war and next war will do. we had a lot of leaders for the last few years dog paddling in the rubicon, they say, joe, i'm coming, see you there but dog paddling. that's got to stop. >> he said he sees an opening for peace. do you agree with that? >> i disagree with tom. it's not the rub s icon, but the sea of galilee. i see there's a glimmer of hope. how this can be constructed, this is where the magic has to be put in place, the egyptians and saudis and israelis have a common adversary and that's hamas, number one. number two, rebuilding the infrastructure for the palestinians in gaza depends on the palestinian authority. the israelis are about to make a 180-degree turn, they have been

demonizing and he's about to become the savior to build some sort of durable cease-fire. there's already a unification government that the israels demonized between the hamas and palestinian authority. guess what? this has to be revalidated by the israelis. there's a lot of things that will start opening that will open up certain opportunities that didn't exist a month ago. should it be based on the rubble of the humanitarian suffering on both sides? absolutely not. could this have been prevented? absolutely had both parties had the coverage to forge the negotiations that carry open the door with. >> the u.s. diplomatic corps is stretched thin these days between iraq and everything else going on in the world and there seems to be less focus on the middle east from secretary kerry directly and perhaps the other administrative staff. do you think that's potentially beneficial to the negotiations? these are obviously delicate negotiations and egyptians are

taking a lead. that helpful or do you think we need to put more emphasis on what's happening there? >> i have lots of very good friends in the diplomatic corps in jerusalem and tel aviv and they are working hard to do their best. but secretary kerry sort of run out the welcome mat with the israelis and with the palestinian authority with respect to his involvement in this earlier cease-fire negotiations. and the egyptians, doesn't particularly trust the americans who tried to diss him because when he overthrew president morsi, this is not democracy. now you have a situation where the regional leaders want to take the lead. not too bad. mr. kerry has enough to do and needs to find out people doing things that he's spending so much time flying around on. >> thanks so much. we're back with a final word on this busy hour next.

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in iraq and the middle east today, remember the president will speak on iraq at 4:45 p.m., that's today, we'll have that for you live. msnbc continuing coverage of america's role in iraq continues next on "now" which starts right now. stabilize iraq without stepping into quick sand. it is monday, august 11th and this is "now". >> the threat of a political coup. >> a political crisis is looming

today in iraq. >> nuri al maliki is refusing to resign. >> our hope is that mr. mallky will not stir the waters. >> we not only backed the wrong guy but turned a blind eye to the fact he was excluding sunnis. >> the obama administration is arming kurdish fighters. >> they are winning some victories. >> people are crowded around the tv here to watch the fighting outside their city. >> giving you a sense of how close isis were getting. >> they spread like poison gas. >> far more ambitious than any other terrorist group. >> without considering syria you can't attack this at its root. >> isis taking on assad. >> if history taught us anything, you can't dip your toe back into the waters of war. >> there are no clear lines anymore in this region. >> if you're in for a dime, you're in for a dollar. >> we are waiting a statement fr