tom friedman, paul wolfowitz, richard haass and marie slaughter on syria, iran, mitt romney and president obama. later in the show, two of the world's leading economists, paul krugman and ken rogoff go head to head on the most important economic matters of our time, the economy, the fiscal cliff, the euro and much more. >>> also, why in the world does the united states find itself number o on a top-ten list with yemen, iraq and serbia? i'll explain. >>> but first, here's my take. mitt romney has picked a bad time to launch an attack on barack obama's foreign policy. as he was speaking to the annual gathering of the veterans of foreign wars this week, charging obama with weakness, betrayal and mendacity, nbc news and "the wall street journal" released a new poll. it turns out on handling foreign policy, americans prefer obama to romney by a whopping 15 points. romney's principal charge against obama is that he has angered america's allies and emboldened its enemies. >> shabby treatment of one of our finest friends. >> well, it turns out again that there's some recently released data that c

two former state department policy planning directors, richard haass, now the president of the council on foreign relations, and ann marie slaughter back at princeton university. joining me from washington, "the new york times" foreign affairs columnist, tom friedman. welcome. tom, let me start with you. you talk to a lot of people in the region. what is your sense about whether assad can hold on? so far he has defied many expectations and has held on. >> well, fareed, you know, i think it's the nature of these kind of regimes that they're strong, they're strong, they're strong until they around and then they go quickly. we just don't know when that moment will be. but the reason he has held on up till now is because he clearly has support. support of the minority that he represents. first of all, his own sect, an offshoot of shias, about 12% of the syrian population, and then christians who basically fear a sunni/muslim majority taking power in syria. and then some sunni muslims who have been allied with the regime for business and other purposes. so this isn't a one-man show. there i

we begin this evening with rob malley, richard haass, david kirkpatrick and janine di giovanni and the consideration of the implications of a dramatic day in damascus syria. but first this report from the cbs evening news. a funeral turned to celebration when mourners learned the defense minister was dead. across the country in this savage civil war, activists celebrated today's bombing because it struck at inside the syrian regime. the dead men were like everyone else in the room master minding the plan to crush syria's uprising. they were meeting in the national security headquarters near the center of damascus. even though fighting has come uncomfortably close these past four days, it still should have been one of the safest buildings in the country. the opposition free syrian army has claimed responsibility for the bombing. there is information blames arab and weren't governments, their intelligence agencies and spies are responsible he said. a syrian official did tell me tonight the government is horrified how easily the bomber appeared to have entered the building. almost immedia

wolfowitz, richard haass, anne marie slaughter, and tom friedman., let's talk about iran for a second outside of the syrian context. what do you think is going to happen -- obama was able to defuse the issue of possible war with iran by saying i am -- i really take this threat seriously. i'm going to press and press them as hard as possible, containment is not an option. we will not live with an iranian nuclear program that could become a weapons program. and so at this point, either the iranians have to surrender completely, i think, or president obama faces a problem. in other words, he's kicked the can down the road, but it's going to come back soon. >> i think the iranians are very good at reading power and the global power scene. i think they've taken the measure of the world right now. and they don't think that -- that anyone's going to force them to give up their nuclear program. i think they realize that israel would be very, very wary of undertaking a military action before the american election or at a time that it could tip the global eco

tom friedman, paul wolfowitz, richard haass and marie slaughter on syria, iran, mitt romney and president. later in the show, two of the world's leading economists, paul krugman and ken rogoff go head to head on the most important economic matters of our time, the economy, the fiscal cliff, the euro and much more. >>> also, why in the world does the united states find itself number one on a top-ten list with yemen, iraq and serbia? i'll explain. >>> but first, here's my take. mitt romney has picked a bad time to launch an attack on barack obama's foreign policy. as he was speaking to the annual gathering of the veterans of foreign wars this week, charging obama with weakness, betrayal and mendacity, nbc news and "the wall street journal" released a new poll. it turns out on handling foreign policy, americans prefer obama to romney by a whopping 15 points. romney's principal charge against obama is that he has angered america's allies and emboldened its enemies. >> shabby treatment of one of our finest friends. >> well, it turns out again that there's some recently released data that contr

richard haass president of the council and foreign relations, also joining us too distinguished reporters david kirk patrick is a cairo bureau chief for the "new york times" and janine di giovanni she's an award winning foreign correspondent recently wrote about president assad's reporters for news weeks and the daily beast. i am pleased to have them here. your filings on the story as we speak. what do we know at 3:30. >> as far as i know, three close advisors to president assad integral rule figures in his war machine has been keu8d as a bomb went off right in what should have been the most secure room in the assad government. pretty much equivalent of the whitehouse situation room where his crises female was meeting, someone managed to blow up a bomb and kill these three integral figures. >> rose: it was a suicide bombers. >> it was a suicide bomber. i don't know the identity of the bomber or crucially that person's sectarian identity whether it was a sunni or what kind of opponent. >> rose: who ought to be noted for being killed. >> his brother-in-law who is an enforcer within the gove

joining success richard haass, president of the council on foreign relations. we have david rubenstein on the set. let's talk europe for a second, talk the euro. when you think about the meetings that are going to happen this week between both with geithner and also going to be having meetings over the ecb and separately here in the u.s., the fed, what do you expect to happen? not what you want to happen. >> whatever is going to happen, andrew, is going to be modest and not enough to get ahead of things. that's been the pattern for the last year or two, where the politics have lagged behind the finances. so the idea that any day we're going to wake up and europe will have done things that will somehow resolve the crisis is just not on so i think we have to assume this kind of churning, be it greece, spain, italy or france is to backdrop, i don't know if we're talking about months or years to come and even if i'm wrong and let's argue for a second that i am, i still think that even if europe gets through the financial crisis, the economic condition of europe per

richard haass, thank you very much for coming in this morning.ead on "morning joe," "newsweek" and "daily beast" editor tina brown joining us and also eugene robinson joining us. keep it here on "morning joe." and you are me if you want it, you just got to believe. weight watchers i believe strength [ jennifer ] confidence beautiful amazing [ emily ] this goes way beyond happiness weight watchers i believe. because it works. [ female announcer ] weight watchers -- rated number one best plan for weight loss by u.s. news and world report, again. [ jennifer ] join for $1. weight watchers. believe. because it works. does this mean we got to campaign? [ male announcer ] what does it take to win? a sassy salesman sold me sicilian sausages. more manly. i am so flustered. [ male announcer ] ferrell. galifianakis. are you taking money from tobacco companies? no. no. [ male announcer ] "the campaign." starts august 10th. wanted to provide better employee benefits while balancing the company's bottom line, their very first word was... [ to the tune of "lull

squawk box" on monday, guest coast is david rubenstein, co-founder of the carlyle group and talk to richard haassredible offer on the powerful, efficient c250 sport sedan with an agility control sport-tuned suspension. but hurry before this opportunity...disappears. ♪ the mercedes-benz summer event ends july 31st. ♪ >>> welcome back to "squawk box." futures right now, i guess we're a little stronger, guy, since the number came out or was it right around the same? i didn't look at it just before the number but we've been up right around this area all morning and maybe just a touch stronger before we started off in the morning. .6% decline in aftertax corporate profits in the national accounts, revision from the first quarter was 5.7, so corporate profitability overall in the economy, this is not the s&p 500, it's the entire economy, after taxes, worse than expected by almost three percentage points. >> joining us now more reaction to the second quarter gdp report is glenn hubbard, former chairman of the council of economic advisers and dean of the columbia business school and also an adviser to th

i appreciate you have richard haass on and dr. will be talking about fashion. >> not bad. not bad. at any rate, there could be a better future here. look at libya. i'm sure you are going to talk about that one day. the -- victor that seems to be emerging is secular. the muslim brotherhood did not win in the recent election in libya. there will be different flavors throughout this region. and we have to be patient. we don't control the outcome here. we can try to help shape it. but we need to be on the right side of this. we need to applaud the hunger for freedom. >> the point just made is very important. we don't control the outcome. that's true. egypt. that's true of iran and that's true of syria. and that's true of afghanistan. we have to draw lessons from that 37 if we overdo or overreach -- >> the days of the u.s. role in nation building with the next administration whether it is barack obama or mitt romney, are those days -- you think over? and that we do now take this new approach of recognizing the globalization and the pol