vali nasr is with us. is the dean of the school of advanced international studies at johns hopkins and author of the book "the dispensable nation" which i have here. vali nasr is an iranian american public will commentary, scholar of contemporary islam in the middle east. he has breached president, congress, many influential and non-influential people. he was born in tehran in 1960 and his family came to the united states having left iran after the revolution. he has a bachelors from tufts university, a masters degree from a fletcher school of law and diplomacy at tufts and earned his ph.d in political science from mit. 100 i will go through your long list of accomplishments. they are special but i would especially to attention to a great part of your book which is the time you spend working under richard holbrooke in 2009-2011. as part of the special office, special advisor on pakistan and afghanistan. now special advisor to the secretary of state. there are always other offices one discovers. part of the

m pleased to have vali nasr back at this table. welcome. good to see you. >> good to be here. >> rose: you and i have had many conversations at this table so now that you have written this book, you say the following as we continue quoting. >> my time in the obama administration turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience. so the question is that arises is what were your expectations and why were you disappointed? >> my expectation was that the administration would be serious about engagement, about diplomacy about reversi some of the trends that emerged during the bush period and that it would be serious about the strategic issues that were confronting the united states in afghanistan and pakistan and the middle east. and given the turbulence in the region it was necessary for us to take some serious change in our approach and none of these seemed to be in the end on the administration's agenda. >> rose: so you were disappointed? >> i was disappointed largely. >> rose: you make several points here. so i would assume the administrat

yesterday. >> warner: in his new book "the defensible nation: american foreign policy in retreat" vali nasr, a former advisor to the u.s. special representative to afghanistan and pakistan blames the white house for mishandling those countries and the broader middle east. politics and the pentagon drove too many decisions, nasr argues, while overlooking broader strategic solutions offered by his former boss, the late richard holbrooke and then secretary of state hillary clinton. vali nasr joins me now. welcome. why did you feel the need to write this book? >> i think it's important for us to have a good gauge of our foreign policy making, particularly with regard to afghanistan, which is very important foreign policy issue at the beginning of the obama administration and because i think the way we handled it has an impact on our standing in the region and our standing globally and i think we in many ways did not handle that war and the end of that war in a way they that protects our interests and i think the same set of approaches and attitudes towards foreign policy making is now governing

. >> >> host: welcome to after words especially vali nasr it is a treat after seeing you all long time away. it is great to have you here and i did enjoy your book for different reasons i would go through that but thank you very much for coming here today. vali nasr is here with us from johns hopkins school of the advance studies and author of the book "the dispensable nation" american foreign policy in retreat". vali nasr a political commentator american iranian and has briefed president, congress, many influential people and born in tehran and then came to the united states after having left after the revolution with a bachelor's and master's degree from the fletcher school and also earned his ph.d. from m.i.t.. well done. i will not go through your long list of accomplishments, they are special but i want to especially to draw attention to a great part of your book that is a time you spent working under richard holbrooke as part of the special office, special advisor on pakistan and afghanistan. now special adviser to the secretary of state. there are other offices and part of the p

. >> welcome to "after words" and especially vali nasr. it's a treat to see you after a long time away. i did enjoy your book for perhaps different reasons i will go through that but i wanted to thank you very much for coming in today. vali nasr is the dean of the school of the advanced international studies at johns hopkins and the author of the book "the dispensable nation," which i have here, american foreign policy in retreat. vali nasr is an american political commentator, scholar of contemporary islam. he has briefed president, congress, many influential and not so influential people. he was born in tehran in 1960 and his family's can't the united states after the evolution. he has a bachelor's and master's degree from the fletcher school of the diplomacy and earned his ph.d. from ny t. i won't go through your long list of accomplishments but i would draw attention for a great part of your book spent working under richard holbrooke as part of the special office, special adviser on pakistan and afghanistan to the secretary of state. t

vali nasr with us, dean of the school of advanced international studies at johns hopkins and the book "the dispensable nation: american foreign policy in retreat," which i have here, an iranian-american, political comem tear #* at a -- common at a timer, briefed congress, and many people, of he was born in 1960, and his family came to the united states having left iran after the revolution. he has a bachelor's, a master's degree from the fletcher school of law and diplomacy and urned a ph.d. in political science from mitt. well done. i won't go through the long lists of accomplishments, they are special, but i especially draw attention, a great part of the book, which is the time you spent working under richard holbrooke, 2009-2011, as part of the special office, special adviser on pakistan and afghanistan. now, special adviser to the secretary of state. there always are other offices one discovers that do the same thing you do, and that's part of the problem as you lay out in the book which is fascinating. other works that you've done, sheer revival, i used in courses i've done, how

vali nasr, welcome, we recommend your book.p leading militarily, you and i are having this conversation to day that president talks about game changers and red lines once again in syria and rhetori rhett continues. what is going on here? >> well president laid down a red line if syria uses chemical weapon then u.s. will get involved in the conflict, syria -- there severed tha there is ea has done so, if america does not do anything, it is about our credibility. our willingness to enforce our red line, we're not doing so that would impact our standing. lou: our standing is already i guess, suspect, given all developments. we have watched the obama drama, if you will with north korea recede from headlines with boston bombing, we have now watching a president recede from his red line deck l declarationa number of months iran remains a in middle east, where is this leading us? >> message outside to everyone that wireless engaged with the world, we don't want to lead on critical issues globally there is north korea and syria, have y

welcome into "the war room," vali nasr.es seem like a spectacularly good read given your experience. let's talk about syria, because that's what is at hand right now. the president has taken a long time to decide what to do here. how do you think he's handling it so far? and it is more about politics or the policy? >> it's really about defending view that he doesn't want to get engaged in the middle east he wants to reduce the importance in the middle east and focus on china. and if he were to focus on syria, he would be reversing his own policy. he has established that we are only going to get militarily involved or not involved at all. there's a lot we can do in between in terms of humanitarian assistance, and none of these have been discussed. >> michael:s and that's what is curious, and it makes me think in afghanistan -- theodore roosevelt had this talk softly and carry a big stick policy. it makes me wonder if this white house has ever talked about diplomasy before talking about arms. what do you think? >> you are abs

vali nasr is the author.hanks very much for coming in, congratulations on the new book. >> good to be with you. >>> the reason north korea's kim jong-un has backed off after weeks of threatening the u.s. did the obama administration play a role? [ female announcer ] the only patch for the treatment of mild to moderate alzheimer's disease is exelon patch. now with more treatment options, exelon patch may improve overall function and cognition. your loved one can get a free 30-day trial. and you can have access to nurses. it does not change how the disease progresses. hospitalization, and rarely death, have been reported from wearing more than one patch at a time. the most common side effects are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fall, loss of appetite or weight, application site redness, and urinary tract infection. the likelihood and severity of these side effects may increase as the dose increases or if patients weigh less than 110 pounds. people at risk for stomach ulcers who take certain other medicines should t

last week, margaret warner talked to former state department vali nasr.he offered a behind-the-scenes critique of policymaking in the obama administration. tonight, margaret gets a different view. >> warner: the united states is erreaching abroad and under- perfming at home. that's the thesis of council on foreign relations president richard haass in his new book, "foreign policy begins at home: the case for putting america's house in order." it's a surprising viewpoint from a former top state department and national security council official. richard haass joins me now to discuss his book and his recommendations for rebalancing our country's priorities. richard haass, welcome. you have spent your entire life dealing with how america shld me challees abroad. now you're saying it's time to refocus here at home. what led to this turnaround? >> it's not a book i ever thought i'd be writing. it surprised me. in part of what wasn't going on in the world. there's no challenger out there of the scale of nazi germany or soviet union during the cold war. so despit

we finish with vali nasr, he discusses his book, the dispenseable nation. american foreign policy in retreat. >>> tonight as people return from their memorial day holiday we'll look at new recommendations from the national transportation safety board that members say could reduce deaths from alcohol-impaired driving. we'll show you some much our recent discussion with chairman debra hersman as well as portions of a recent meeting where the board aproves the recommendation. here's a look. >> today we meet to consider the safety report, reaching zero, actions to eliminate alcohol impaired driving. this is critical because impaired driving remains one of the biggest killers in the united states. 25 years ago today our nation saw the deadliest alcohol-impaired driving crash in u.s. history. a drunk driver drove his pickup the wrong way on interstate 71 near carol ton, kentucky. he hit a school bus, and killed 24 children and three adult chaperones. injuring 34 more. today our thoughts are with those families in carolton, kentucky, who are recognizing the 25th a

first, david rohde on "beyond haass,nd then richard nasr on his vali book "the dispensable nation." be aere tends to denigration by the u.s. military by some historians that whenever one german battalion fought in american italian -- tended to the germans be tactically superior. the betterere military. i think this is nonsense. it is pointless. global war is a clash of systems. it is which system can produce the wherewithal to project .ower the atlantic, the pacific, the indian ocean, southeast asia, which system can reduce -- systems, the civilian system. >> on tuesday, rick atkinson will take your calls, e-mail's, facebook comments and tweets. that's three hours of live on "book tv" on c-span2. >> now, a live discussion on u.s. relations with russia. we're expecting to hear from john brown at cnn foreign affairs correspondent, jill dougherty. the associated press rights with the u.s. decision to arm and three rebels and russia's decision to supply the assad regime with missiles, possible that it has overshadowed attempts to bring representatives of the regime and the opposition to