randall kennedy of harvard is most recent book is called for discrimination and david rothkopf iran's "foreign policy" magazine will be talking about u.s. foreign policy. full schedule of today's live coverage from miami is available at our website, booktv.org. all they wanted and get updates of behind the scenes photos at booktv. .org twitter handle. you can also join us at facebook.com/booktv. if you're in the area, come on down. c-span bus is here, we are passing a great book bags and some other things. would love to have you come and say hi at the chamber of commerce day here in miami. the sun is shining. it's about 83 degrees. a little breezy but otherwise it's a great day for the street fair that happens here at the miami book fair. opec chapman hall which is at miami-dade college which is where the book fair is held, there's the room that we will be broadcasting live from all day long. the first panel is just about to start. you can see a full room in there. pamela paul will be leading the discussion to new times book review editor, walter mosley is participating. this is live

foreign policy with david rothkopf. will begin with leo in the bronx. you are on the booktv.please go ahead. >> caller: thanks for having me. my question is, you made a statement that barack obama is under involved in iraq and syria. i want to remind you of ronald reagan in 1983 when 240 marines were killed in a terrorist bombing in beirut, and his response was to withdraw those marines. lebanon had a civil war which went from 1975-1990 so do you think that barack obama is taking a page out of ronald reagan's book? and the other part of the question is, how do you weight intervention versus containment? >> guest: well, i don't know barack obama is generally taken a page out of ronald reagan's book. there are many examples in u.s. history of presidents not responding to overseas crises, and i think it's appropriate. there's no reason why the united states should get involved and beaten the world's sheriff. but there are some circumstances that require our involvement because if we act, particularly if we act early, you can protect our national interest. i think what happened w

randall kennedy of harvard is most recent book is called for discrimination and david rothkopf iran's "foreign policy" magazine will be talking about u.s. foreign policy. full schedule of today's live coverage from miami is available at our website, booktv.org. all they wanted and get updates of behind the scenes photos at booktv. .org twitter handle. you can also join us at facebook.com/booktv. if you're in the area, come on down. c-span bus is here, we are passing a great book bags and some other things. would love to have you come and say hi at the chamber of commerce day here in miami. the sun is shining. it's about 83 degrees. a little breezy but otherwise it's a great day for the street fair that happens here at the miami book fair. opec chapman hall which is at miami-dade college which is where the book fair is held, there's the room that we will be broadcasting live from all day long. the first panel is just about to start. you can see a full room in there. pamela paul will be leading the discussion to new times book review editor, walter mosley is participating. this is live

and i'm joined by david rothkopf, the ceo and editor of "foreign policy" and author of the book "nationality" and bret stephens, national security columnist at the "wall street journal" and author of the book "america in retreat." david, i want to start with you. you had been urging in your writing for the president to shake up his cabinet, his national security team. but do you think they got rid of the wrong man? >> oh, yeah, this -- hagel was a sacrificial lamb. the reality is the problem is in the white house, the problem is that this administration takes too many decisions there, micromanages too much from there and is divided themselves within the white house about whether they take a strong stance on a group like isis or they take halfway measures. that causes problems down the line. hagel was a victim of those problems, not a cause of them. >> one of the things, bret, there were some whisperings that hagel had sort of gone native and channeling the frustrations of the military. so does that matter? is that the point or do you agree with david? >> i agree with david in the sense th

david rothkopf. >> an age of fear. probably had to do with election results a couple of days ago.d in the middle east over the past several months, and what our policies over the past decade, how they have contributed. >> the situation in the middle east right now is as bad as it's been maybe since the flood. you have wars from north africa straight across to pakistan. we don't really have a clear strategy. there are no clear alliances forming to address these things. people in the region who are problem people they have the ability to project force to us just as they did before. there are more terrorists. more terrorist groups. more terrorist casualties today than there were around 9/11. >> you talked over 100 people that work both in the bush and the obama administrations. how do they describe this national insecurity and why we're here? >> i think they describe it as a swing from one extreme to the other. where early on we overreacted, iraq was the result. barack obama was a reaction to the overreaction and has underreacted. the irony is both for bush and for obama, the signal