joinings now council fellow elliot abrams. it is a balancing act, mr. abram, how would you say the united states is doing right now? >> hi, it is a balancing act. it hasn't been a good year, certainly for the president. you know, his false moves on syria were the kind of things, iranians, russian, allies like the saudis and allies, it's disconcerting, it gives them the sense we are not as powerful as we once were. >> we know some of these relationships, international relationships really hinge on the camaraderie between the leaders. how would you assess president obama's relationships with some of these other world leaders right now? >> i think you have to say he doesn't have those relationships. president clinton did. president george w. bush did. they were more gregarious. it doesn't look like the president likes to do this sort of thing, jollying up leaders. he doesn't have the relationship, even in europe with our closest allies, with the israelis. it's a kind of institutional relationship. but the close the intimate friendship that clinton-bush had

elliot abrams was deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy during the george w. bush administration. he's currently a senior fellow for middle eastern studies at the council on foreign relations and the author most recently of "tested by zion: the bush administration and the israeli/palestinian conflict." brian katulis is a senior fellow at the center or fur american progress where he focuses on the middle east and north africa. he is co-author of one book, there are also a couple of articles by brian over there on the side, i think they're still available. and, about brian's recent work on saudi arabia which he'll fill us in a bit. in the meantime, i wanted mr. abrams to make a first comments at first, and then brian, and then we'll have a discussion. thanks. >> thank you. thank you all for being here today. i want to start by saying that some of the discussion of u.s./saudi relations, i think, is overdone in the sense of a hopeless crisis that will result in incurable differences. this is an old relationship, roughly 75 years old. aramco was founded in 1944, an

elliot abrams, former secretary national security visor for president george w. bush the nice to have you on set. >> nice to be here. jenna: secretary of state john kerry says we're at a very delicate dip loy mat tick moment. are we? >> we are if you buy the iranian talking points which are, anymore sanctions and we walk. i don't see why we should really believe that and why we should kind of cringe in advantages. let's keep pushing them to the table kerry tells us. the administration tells us that. why would any further sanctions delayed until june, by the way, they're not tomorrow morning. the senate gives them six months. why would that blow up the talks? jenna: we should mention the deal we have in iran, in quotes, deal, just agreement for initial framework. it i was not an official deal over their nuclear program. >> it's a short, it's a six-month deal and it isn't even, your quotes are right because there has to be implementation agreement which there isn't yet before that deal goes into effect. it hasn't even started yet. jenna: you get the sense though, w