brett stevens is the columnist at the wall street journal. first stop, saudi arabia, there are a lot of people who look at saudi arabia these days and feel oil has plummeted. it's highly unstable and finally, after many prognostications are proven wrong, saudi arabia is on the verge of collapse. >> this is not going to be a good stop because both leaderships have expressed their discontent and disgust with the other. not a fun meeting. no reason to believe the saudi regime is in any danger of collapse. it's proven the skeptics wrong. it's still a strong u.s. allie. maybe not a loved positive relationship but there's enough common interest to keep the relationship together and cooperation going whether there's an intelligence cooperation or against iran, isis or circumstancisad. i don't know why the president came out so explicitly with so much time left and expressed his distake for so many allies. >> it's odd he's revealing stuff you kind of want him to wait for his memoirs to do. >> he has to be careful this isn't a replay of jimmy carter v

orthodoxies of the modern west are there gateway to it and joining us now is a man who wrote that, brett stevens, foreign affairs columnist for the wall street journal. thank you for joining us. it's an interesting piece and for people at home if you haven't read it, give us your opinions. i want to start with the very beginning. you were headed to pakistan to cover an earthquake and you ran into these three muslim men and tell us what happened. >> british muslims, i was at heathrow airport on a stopover to as islam abroad. three young men clearly from london, they spoke in south london accent, struck up a conversation. they had these sort of light beards, they were dressed in the traditional shall are close. they said vaguely they were going to pakistan to do charitable work and i thought maybe they were on the same plane because it would be relatively safe but very soon they started talking about the movie of the hour for them which was michael moore's fahrenheit 9/11 and they clearly saw the kind of conspiracy theories of that film as something akin to a political gospel. here was an american