. >> to discuss obama administration's shifting position is jim walsh, a security analyst with mit securities study program. welcome jim. >> good to see you john. >> i want to go back to the study that we led with at the top of the hour which is about the white house and their shifting position. what's your reaction? >> i've been surprised at several points during the next two weeks. i'm not surprised about this. we were not going to get a u.n. security resolution that did either of the following. that either prohibited the use of force or mandated the use of force. right? so the russians have been pushing you know as their opening bargaining position yeah we'll get an opening position but u.s. has to promise that military action is off the table. that's not happening. then on the other side this u.n. resolution isn't going to contain anything that authorizes the use of military force. but the u.s. is free to do whatever it wants after the fact. >> it was very, very serious about whether or not if syria did not comply there would be action. and that seemed to be related to the u.n. resolution

we'll ask jim walsh, who just finished having dinner with the new president of hassan rouhani. >> our producer is fielding your questions and she'll bring them to it. join the conversation on twitter, facebook and google+ pages. we'll we right back. a >> much was made of the handshake that never happened between president obama and iranian president hassan rouhani. the so-called snub belies the reality of a charm offensive that the "new york times" calls hassan rouhani-mania. a dinner party was hosted at a hotel. two dozen people were invited, including a former white house chief of staff, security advisor, diplomats and jim walsh. an international security expert at nyt security analysis program. what struck you the most? what was the most important thing you saw? >> two things. one we'll talk about later. this guy is not ahmadinejad in a variety of ways. he's a different person in style and inclination and goal. the second thing that came through crystal clear is they want to deal, they want to deal now and get it done and done quick. he wants something to come back to his constitue

. >> jim walsh from mit. thank you for your perspective. as always we invite to you stay tune and stay updated with the help of www.aljazeera.com. >>> well, children across the country are heading back to class today, but in bankrupt detroit dozens of shuttered schools are being told off to help alleviate the city's cash-strapped school process. >> welcome back to al jazeera. i'm del walters coming to you from new york. we want to take you live now to the al jazeera america where u.n. general secretary ban ki-moon is addressing th and gig an update about the inspectors findings. he cautioned the white house to get approval from the international community before it proceeds with any military action in syria. we're watching the developments taking action in the u.n. and we'll bring them to you as they warrant. >>> summer is over and kids are heading back to school. but for school districts nationwide money is a problem and budget cuts is a reality. in michigan schools are being dissolved all together and 53 are in the red. bisi p onile. >> r

and i like to speak to it because of jim walsh, and he actually had dinner last night with hassan rouhani. and i was invited but they said they need jim. and jim went along and they have known each other for a long time. and talking to antonio morrow, jim said that this is no ahmadinejad. a very different kind of man. apparently he said that he is doing this because he has a window of opportunity. he was elected by the iranian people to be a breath of fresh air and a lot of them said good luck with the united states. and he wants to do something, and he wants it quickly too. two or three months is his timeframe. but today, president hassan rouhani spoke at a non-proliferation conference here at the general assembly, and to show how markedly different he is than ahmadinejad, he never referenced other countries not having nuclear weapons as well. and by that, he means israel. > >> interpreter: nuclear weapons states have primary responsibility for nuclear disarmament. i strongly urge them to comply with this long, overdue, legal obligation. where fulfillment of nuclear disarmament obligatio

. >> heather: jim walsh, thank you for your insite. for now and media buzz is up next. thank you for remaining part the evening. estible carbs to help minimize blood sugar spikes. [ male announcer ] glucerna. helping people with diabetes find balance. >> this is the debut edition of "media buzz." leg ou >> this is the debut edition, and president obama is going on the defensive with the network anchors over syria. >> they have to get past the bun eling and the fact the president was ambivalent and did not communicate that to the secretary of state. >> the tugs is clear: is not a blank check for any executive republican or democrat to bring the countries into another ill conceiveed war. >> why have pundits ripped the last minute decision to seek the blessing? are reporters concept calculate

. >> jim walsh thanks for being with us today. >> thank you. syrian refugees meanwhile are pouring across the border into the kurdish administered region options of northern iraq, the u.n. saying some 52,000 people have arrived there since officials relax the border controls two weeks ago. those numbers expected to rise as world leaders now consider how best to respond to the suspected chemical weapons attack in damascus. emron kahn. >> the syrian/iraq border, people waiting to get through. about 700 people have arrived here already. they go through that border and they are brought here now, a number of ngos and refugee agent seeds have front tee there. >> that's the uar tent. you can see a few people waiting. the majority have been registered. see the buses over there, that's the buses that take them to the refugee companies. any children in danger are taken to unicef. at the moment, it's only syrian kurdish people coming across this border. the iraqi kurds and syrian kurds, common language, a common history so it's much easier to absorb them

. >> i want to hear what zawahri had to say in just a minute but i want to welcome jim walsh, jim is an expert in international security and a fellow at securities -- >> sorry to be a little late. >> no problem, we were talking about ayman al zawahri how he got his message late. >> yes. >> lest listen to what he had to say. i'll quote what he had to say. he called for more lone wolf attacks on america, and do you think that that is an indication of big al qaeda not being able to put together those big strikes that they were known for? and are really going to focus on smaller-scale terrorism operations? >> i think you're absolutely right. i think most folks if they hear that they're thinking -- they hear diswaw zawahri and it senda tremor down their spine and another message what does that mean? i think you're right to tease that out. first of all al qaeda central if we'll call it that, had to rely on regional, al qaeda yemen al qaeda grahib. where i'm in water town massachusetts, where there was a general strike. >> whether our counterterrorism efforts have been successful, what do y

we are now just minutes away from president obama address to the nation, joining us now is jim walsh.e is an international security expert. and also, she is the senior writer here at al jazeera america. worked from syria as a journalist since 2011. welcome to both of you, what do you expect to hear from the president tonight? >> i think we will hear him retreat a little bit, and i think he may try to claim a victory, in the most generous reading this is what he was trying to do all along to get the russians to play. >> i think the food news is he has low expectations. he is in a tough bind, he has to give a speech that rallies the country for military action, while there's a proposal on the table. i think he has to change his communication strategy. when you watch him he is down, defeated if you want to win the american people you have to rally them. he has to give them positive information. >> we are getting a couple of words from the administration officials prespeech, one of them says that the president will stress in his speech, that any military action in syria would be limited i

jim walsh is an international security expert, he is doing to be with us for the entire morning and jim, prior to 9/11, the defense thinking cold war, we were thinking about boots on the drowned, and the traditional combat between two countries. what changed and what has changed since. >> you are right, just prior to that attack, you had a new administration, george bush has come to office, his focus was missle defense. it was all about missle defense, or the not soviet, but russians or north koreans and then things changed dramatically. fist the focus on the threat, it wasn't a focus, and then the government began to develop a defense, and offense. and you saw it in airports and we had new security procedures, all of that, that's all about protecting the homeland, the homeland security administration, and then arecord, really a focus on offense that we have seen evolve over a dozen years with the primary emphasis on drones and sort of taking it to the enemy. >> so are we safer? and i bring this up because just when crow think nothing is going to happen, you have two brothers in boston

now to discuss competing resolutions on how to secure syria's chemical weapons, jim walsh here, researchiate at mit. talk with us about this for a second. how difficult is it going to be to secure those stock piles? >> it's going to be hugely difficult because you got to do three different things, each of which is complex, each of which is difficult. you got to find them. >> yes. >> you got to secure them. and then you have to destroy them. so find them. we don't have a baseline. u.s. official government say we don't know where every chemical munition is. it's not clear that assad would know where all the chemical munitions are. >> it's not clear that he would know? >> with a thousand metric tons of agents plus munitions over 50 facilities, research facilities, storage facilities, maintenance facilities. the soviet union was not able to manage it all. we weren't able to manage it all. now granted their program is small, but are they going to give us all the paper records? are we going to be able to interview everyone? and securing where the troops are coming from, and then destruction, w

joining us to talk about it is national security specialist jim walsh. tell me your first impression of the report. what do you think? >> i'm not surprised. think back to when the nsa spying scandal broke. the administration responded saying, "we are not listening to your phone calls, we are collecting metadata" as if calling it a fancy name, it was okay. my colleagues and i know it's a powerful tool. if you are a law-abiding american citizen, my daughter or son, the government can collect information about you. they may not be listening, but they know more from the metadata because they know who you are talking to, where you are going, who your social network it, where you travel. it's like having an fbi agent following or stalking you. only it's invisible because it's digital. >> how is this working? are they truly going through facebook profiles seeing how different people are connected, is it that minute. >> that is a part of it, but just a small piece of it. social network analysis is you put someone in the center of a map and you say, "who else are

. >> joining us now is jim walsh, an expert in international security matters and he is based out of m.i.t., so joins us from boston this morning. jim, one week ago, the story was syria. now there is all this talk about iran. is there still that possibility for a resolution concerning syria's chemical weapons to once again take center stage? >> there is, del. unless there is major progress this week, among the principles to try to get a security council resolution that locks that informal agreement in, then i think you'll see pressure building on the president. the more time that passes, where nothing happens, the weaker his position. i think he's going to try to enforce a deadline and say hey, we need the security council resolution, otherwise, i'm going to revisit the option of military force. i think what happens this week will be important. it will be important often syria, whether there's a security council resolution and it will be important for iran, because this is the beginning, the opening of the season, if you will on u.s.-iran negotiations. >> what about russia? how will r

jim walsh is an international security expert. and holly of al jazeera is with us. give me your reaction. >> you know, i just think he keeps -- he just keeping leaving more questions unanswered. he invoked sort of provocative reasons that the united states would have to ask in the case of chemical weapons imaging of the children dying. >> he should go home and look at the video. >> right. there have been videos for the last 2 1/2 years of children dying. i think -- i think a lot of people are not understanding why the only reason to act is when death is by chemical weapons. as opposed to sitting out what is happening. the same things he invoked to compel people to understand what is at risk here, what is at stake, can be said about all the deaths that have been happening over the last 2 1/2 years. >> did you hear anything new? >> not so much. it was more a legal argument, not until the eend special purpose, and the emotion involved in chose videos. i think the part of the speech is the part that you highlighted the questions in the middle clearly they polled on them

jim walsh.is afternoon. >> good to be with you martha. >> i want to know what your take is on all of this. this russian proposal and now the word that the only way that he will agree to get rid of these weapons is if the united states says that force is not off the table. >> you know if we were able to do this, it is a enormous challenge. if we were able to do it, it would have some advantages over a military strike. it was not going to go after the chemical agent for fear of sending off a plume of toxic gas. it was going to hit some of the chemical weapons units. the advantage of this it is a complex challenge. >> do you think that would happen, is russia hoping to accomplish making the united states look effectless in all of this? >> i have had strong scepticism all along here. they would welcome the strike hope that go the strike would make the u.s. look bad and weaken the us. i'm sort of surprised that they jumped in at the last minute here. and might offer something that could be a deal tha

let's discuss what's going on with jim walsh. ings with president rowhani in new york this week. also colin call, a senior fellow at the center for new american security here in washington. all right, jim, four hours you spent with him? what do you think? is this guy for real? is it fake? what's your bottom line? >> i think, you know, actions speak louder than words. we'll have to see where it goes. we don't want the expectations too high, but what impressed me was not the phone call, which would be in the history books, probably, but what each president said. president obama really puts it out there and says he expects, wants a comprehensive agreement. then president rowhani say the same thing in a private dinner event with me saying, he wants an agreement, he wants it quick, he wants to move, something to take back to the electoral there. that's both presidents say we want something. that's important when the top person makes that a priority. >> you recently worked, colin, as the depend assistant secretary to defense. do you bel

jim walsh, with us, national security expert with mit program and met with president rouhani, the newsident of iran last night. claudia rose set, for the defense for democracy, covered the u.n. for several years. great to have you both with us today. >> great to be with you. jenna: jim, start with dinner. how was it? >> dinner was good. it was interesting. jenna you and i talked over the years. i've gone with dinners with ahmadinejad six times. this my first up close experience with the new president and i had two takeaways. one this guy is not ahmadinejad. not that he is smiling and blah, blah, he has completely different personality. when you're with ahmadinejad he is the smartest guy in the room whether he is or it's not. it is always about him. he is very peculiar personality. you can tell rouhani is a political professional. he is focused on the process and the second big thing that came out of this was not only is he not ahmadinejad, he wants a deal and wants it quick. he doesn't want a big deal that will take a lot of time and is complicated. he wants deal on nuclear that is sm

president bashar al assad directly ordered last month's chemical weapons attack on his own people, and jim walshe securities studies program at the massachusetts institute of technology. he joins me now. good to see you again. >> good to see you, martha. martha: so what do you make of this report? >> well, at one level it makes sense. you're not going to have, quote, absolute proof until assad is toppled. then you might get some written records or eyewitness testimony, but you don't need that for policy making. as head of his military, he is responsible. the government is responsible. he's head of the government. so when bad things happen, he's one that has to answer for it. and i might add, martha, these aren't just -- chemical weapons aren't just any sort of weapon. when you look at the history of folks who have chemical weapons, these are among the most tightly-controlled weapons a country will have. normally those folks report directly to the president outside of the normal chain of command. now, maybe there's something wrong with that chain of command, but assad is responsible one way or an

. >> congressman jim mcdermott and joan walsh, thank you for your time tonight. >> thanks for having me. >>> coming up, the epic republican misstatements about obama care. we'll investigate the toxic group of right wing extremism and big money coming together to distort the truth. >>> plus here comes sarah palin. she's hammering john mccain and talking about cannibal elephants. huh? we'll have to explain that one. >>> and an american crisis president obama is fighting to fix. the justice system targeting minorities. our special series, criminal injustice, begins tonight. >>> also friend or foe, i want to know. e-mail me. reply al is ahead. [ man ] this isn't my first career. but it might just be my favorite. [ female announcer ] welcome to the new aarp. we're ready to help you rediscover purpose and passion with programs like life reimagined to inspire you and connect you, resources to help turn your goals and dreams into real possibilities. aarp, an ally for real possibilities. find new tools and ideas for work, money, health and fun at aarp.org/possibilities. all your important leg

agreement from chief national security correspondent jim sciutto who is in tel aviv right now, senior international correspondent nick robertson and nick peyton walshday. >> reporter: secretary kerry arrived in israel. he is meeting benjamin netanyahu to talk about two things, one, their efforts at mideast peace talks and also to give him an update on this syria deal and to give him reason to be confident in this syria deal. it's something that secretary kerry is going to continue as he travels from here to paris later in the day where he'll meet the french and british foreign ministers as well as the turkish and saudi foreign ministers. they'll go over all the details about the time line for syria to give up the chemical weapons. he's going to give them more specifics. what did you hear from the russian foreign minister in their private conversations? how is the u.s., how are russia, the international community going to keep syria to its promises here on what is a very aggressive and very ambitious time line? as a reminder, here's how it's expected to play out. by november they'll complete inspections of all of syria's chemical weapons sites and a

jim sciutto's traveling with the secretary in geneva. first, our senior international correspondent nick paton walsh at the united nations where there are important developments unfolding. nick, tell our views are what you've learned. >> reporter: a very big deal here. the u.n. confirmed to us that the syrian mission has sent to them a letter in which they ask to join the chemical weapons convention of 1993. now the terms of that basically say a country has to get rid of all of its stockpiles of chemical weapons, anything used to create them within a period of ten years. i've been speaking to an expert who explained a little more how this works now. he said that the act of actually joining this convention means you accept all of its terms, you are agreeing to the destruction of all of the weapons and that within 30 days of joining, those provisions within that particular convention become binding. so syria's stuck with what it's agreed to hear within 30 days. we've had a lot of caveats from bashar al assad in interviews he's been giving. we haven't seen the full text of the letter, but the u.n. is confirming this secession which is quit

jim clancy, cnn, jerusalem. >> syria's crisis has the whole region on edge. some people are concerned a possible u.s. strike on syria may trigger retaliation from other countries.spective on thi from my panel, now. nick paton walshm the start. how does obama's speech today change things for nations near syria? >> it gives them a little bit more time, potentially. there is a missile strike, certainly injects a huge am of uncertainty as to whether or not this will, in fact, happen. if it doesn't happen, that is an enormous impact on the region because it gives license to assad to do this again and, perhaps, suggests the u.s. is checked out as a kind of policeman to that particular part of the world. you should bear in mind about how awful it's already been for the syrians. this war began, as many syrian children have died, soldiers lost in afghanistan and iraq put together. the world is going to cover this for 30 more years. going to impact the u.s., our allies. at some point the u.s. was going to get drawn in. is this the time which it was supposed to happen? it's too late. eventually that is going to be the case and barack obama possibly has the moral weight of history on his side when trying to navigate this pr

walsh, who run it is. neal everett is a very bright guy. >> have a great weekend, jim. >> thank you, buddy. >> i wish you goodall. >> when we come back, we'll dig deeper into the story. everything you need to know about twitter filing an ipo. and should walmart and others be forced to pay workers $12.50 an hour. washington's mayor vetoed such a measure. he'll explain why. [ male announcer ] these days, a small business can save by sharing. like carpools... polly wants to know if we can pick her up. yeah, we can make room. yeah. [ male announcer ] ...office space. yes, we're loving this communal seating. it's great. [ male announcer ] the best thing to share? a data plan. at&t mobile share for business. one bucket of data for everyone on the plan, unlimited talk and text on smart phones. now, everyone's in the spirit of sharing. hey, can i borrow your boat this weekend? no. [ male announcer ] share more. save more. at&t mobile share for business. ♪ just by talking to a helmet. it grabbed the patient's record before we even picked him up. it found out the doctor we needed was at st. anne's. wiggle your toes. [

walsh, thank you very much. >> thank you, good morning. >> good morning to you, too. thank you for being here, jim. is opening up about her drug-filled past. >>> and more on julie chen's plastic surgery. chinese-american television host admits to going under the knife to widen her eyes and advance her career. more after the break. especially today, as people are looking for more low, and no calorie options. that's why on vending machines, we're making it easy for people to know how many calories are in their favorite beverages, before they choose. and we're offering more low calorie options, including over 70 in our innovative coca-cola free-style dispensers. working with our beverage industry and restaurant partners, we're helping provide choices that make sense for everyone. because when people come together, good things happen. she took an early spring break thanks to her double miles from the capital one venture card. now what was mrs. davis teaching? spelling. that's not a subject, right? i mean, spell check. that's a program. algebra. okay. persons a and b are flying to the bahamas. how fast