Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20150218

Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose mike morell is here. He was Deputy Director of the c. I. A. From 20102013. He also served twice as acting director during that time. There is also this egypt launched air strikes against Islamic State targets in libya yesterday. The attack was in retaliation for the beheading of 21 crist egyptian hostages. The killing raised concern that the isis is expanding its global footprint beyond its bases in iraq and syria. In geneva irans Six International powers have entered a decisive phase in nuclear noarngz the world powers want iran to curtail its Nuclear Program in return for lifting sanctions. Irans supreme ruler announced last week no deal is better than a bad deal. American politicians have said the same thing. Im pleased to have mike morell back at this table. Welcome. Good to be here. Rose someone said to me theres a sense that somebodys got to come together, that the isis and the extent of their footprint is much more troubling than anybody ever imagined. Tell me how you see isis today based on what we just saw in libya paris, copenhagen iraq and syria. What is the challenge here . And what kind of response is demanded . And whats the time context . So lets charlie, first start in iraq itself. Weve been weve been at this now we being the United States and the coalition weve been at this now for six months, six months of air strikes. So in iraq, what weve done in those six months is basically stopped their expansion, stopped their blitzkrieg. Weve put an end to that. We the coalition, have put an end to that, and the iranians have put an end to that. The iranians have built very effective shia militia that are taking on isis on the ground while we do a lot from the air. But weve stopped the expansion of them in iraq. Rose on the iran element just for a moment. These were militias already in place, shia militias that had been engaged in iraq before many of them but not all of them. Some of them are new. Rose so theyre new. Some of them are new, not all of them. And how is iran contributing to their effort . They are funding training, equipping, providing strategic guidance and tactical guidance on the ground as well. So weve basically stopped the isis expansion in iraq, but within the area that they control so within the sunni areas of iraq and within the sunni areas of syria, isis has consolidated its position over the last six months. What does that mean consolidated . It means six months ago they did not control all of that territory. Now they pretty much do. So there were some tens of thousands that they didnt control. Theyve taken those over. So while weve stopped the expansion, theyve consolidated their position. Thats one thing thats happened in the last six months. The other thing thats happened in the last six months is weve seen their ideology spread in two different directions. One are to young people in western europe, in canada in australia and in the United States, people who have become radicalized. And weve seen what theyve done in paris, in sydney in denmark here in new york with a hatchet attack on two new York Police Department officers. So weve seen that spread of their ideology. The other spread of their ideology which really has only become clear in the last month or so is the spread of their ideology to other extremist groups in algeria, in libya, in egypt, increasingly in afghanistan. Rose yemen . And in yemen. And these these arent groups that didnt exist and all of a sudden have popped up and called themselves isis. These are extremist groups that existed, didnt associate themselves with anybody and now all of a sudden are saying hey, were part of this isis movement. Rose and swearing allegiance to isis and al baghdadi. Exactly. Why does that matter . I think it makes them more dangerous because before when they were not associated with anybody, they were they were primarily going after local targets. They had local grievance, local targets. Now, as part of isis theyre expanding their target set. So what we saw in tripoli last month was we saw a group that now alines with isis attack a westernoriented hotel, a hotel where western businessmen stay and a hotel where diplomats stay. We saw an attack on the group associated with isis, and we saw a hand full of people including an american, including an american. And this look what we just saw in the eastern part of libya with the beheading of these christians from egypt. So that wouldnt have happened right, if they had not been part of isis. So thats a consequence of them taking on that name. This spread, right this spread of this ideology to selfradicalized youth and to these terrorist groups is faster than anything we saw with al qaeda, with al qaeda core in pakistan. Rose and the threat is that it will continue to spread. That it is like a Rolling Stone gathering momentum . Uhhuh. And why is it spreading, right . Ing the answer to that, charlie, is twofold. One is, isis is seen as successful. Isis is seen as successful and nothing breeds followers in the terrorism business like success. And i think the other is the quality, as weve talked about before, the quality of their social media. Rose and theyve got social media. They also have money and they have weapons because of those that theyve captured from the iraqi army. Correct. Rose this is the New York Times today this morning under the headline, u. S. Intensifies effort to blunt isis message. So thats one small thing. Thats very small. Rose very small. And i say two things about it. Its very small. Rose right. The state Department Office has never received the funding that it needs to take this on. And even with this even with this plusup, its still not going to. But the other thing is that in this propaganda war, we cant be at the center of it. Because we dont have any credibility in that part of the world. A big parent of the messaging here has to be about islam itself, and what the religion is about and what its not about. We have no credibility in talking about that. Rose but hasnt the cece from egypt and alduala begun to talk about this . Yes, and thats very very important. But ultimately the leaders of those countries have to take it on. The clerics in those countries have to take it on. Rose in the mosque. In the mosque. The leading clerics have to take it on but most important those clerics in the mosques on fridays giving sermons have to take it on. Rose the other thing that came out and there was a piece on 60 minutes you may have seen and it also is true i think about what theyve discovered in copenhagen, is these people who have become adherents to isis got their indoctrinate rinnation in prison because they were simply criminals. Right. Rose they were thieves. Right. Rose and they went to prison. Right. Rose and they became indoctrinated inside of prison. Yes. Rose and then they go out and do acts that are political, not just criminal. Uhhuh. So prison is a place around the world, including the United States where people get radicalized. It happens fair couple of reasons. One is you join a group in prison to protect yourself from other prisoners. And so you tend to join groups that of likeminded people, so if youre a young person, you gravitate towards those who are like you. So if youre a muslim, you gravitate to other muslims, and you can be radicalized. The other is for a the love people in prison, they feel alienated from their society. They wouldnt be in there in the first place. And what what isis and other terrorist groups give you is a purpose, a purpose to your life. And thats one of the things thats probably the major thing that attracts people to terrorist groups is a purpose. Rose okay lets shift back that clearly has to be part of it. This argument some people and the president has been there and hes gotten in the middle of this a little bit is that these are not theyre not islamic. Yes, they say they are, but islam says no theyre not. Theres nothing about islam that they are acting on. Others will say no, thats not true. There is an extreme part of islam going back to saudi Arabia Arabia that they do find things that inform them about what they want to do and give them an identity. Where are you on that . There is no doubt, there is no doubt that religion plays a role here and an important role. They believe, they believe that what theyre doing is defending their religion. They believe they are interpreting their religion correctly. You know, most muslims would disagree with them. Rose right. You and i would disagree with them. Most clerics would disagree with them not all but they believe, they believe deeply in what theyre doing. They believe they are religious. They believe they are defending their religion from us. Rose and thats what theyve been taught. Yes. Rose an interpretation of islam. One and of the ways by the people in prison or the people in the mosques. Yes, charlie one of the ways young people get radicalized is they have not been Good Students of their religion. So they dont understand their religion anywhere near as well as they should and so they become vulnerable to the messages from these radical preachers, and these radicals about what their religion really stands for. Whats cull tullely called for is more religious training in a lot of parts of the world so people really understand what islam is all about and what its not. Rose so there has to be an internal engagement within islam. Yes. Rose about what it is that these people are hanging on to. Yes. Rose that gives them the motivation to go out and do the kind of acts that everybody else says is an obscene act against the koran. Yes. Rose so theyre on the move. While they may have been stopped but not turned around. Theyre on the move in a different way now ncht gl and theyre consolidating. Whats necessary on the ground in a Strategic Military way . So ultimately ultimately, you have to take their territory away. Because if you dont take their territory away, they will they will continue to have safe haven, which is extremely valuable to a terrorist group. And what they will ultimately use to attack us theyve said that. They have said that and so you have to take and as long as they have territory charlie, theyre going to continue to get money. They produce and sell oil. Theyre going to in iraq. Theyre going to continue to get money. Theyre going to continue to get recruits. Theyre going to continue to get weapons. Taking that it territory away from them is vitally important. Rose and so how do you do that . Ultimately theres only one way to do that. Ultimately you have to do it on the ground. You have to take it away from them with ground troops. Our plan our plan in iraq is hold them back with air strikes, retrain the iraqi army, you know which has dwindled to 50,000 guys. Needs to be rebuilt needs to be retrained, because maliki, the former Prime Minister of iraq, you know by putting political people in charge of it by disenfranchising sunnis, really destroyed the army. So youre talking about rebuilding it again. That is a longterm process. Meanwhile, these shia militia that i was talking about built trained by, supplied, equipped by the iranians, 100,000 strong now. So somebodys got to take this territory back from them in iraq. You know id put more money right now on the shia militia doing it than the iraqi army eventually doing it. One of the possibilities here is that we defeat isis in iraq but we lose iraq to iran, essentially, because is that a price worth paying . Or a risk worth taking . I dont know. We should talk about that when we talk about iran in a second. Rose all right. But not only do you have to take the territory from them in iraq. You have to take the territory from them in syria. Because if you dont do that if you only take the territory from them in iraq, what happens is is they go back across that border they go back across that border into syria, and they have safe haven there. So you have to you have to have a strategy in iraq, which we do have a strategy, but you also have to have a strategy in syria, and thats where i think thats what ive thought all along is the weak link. Rose so hodo you create a strategy in syria . The strategy in syria is to train 5,000 moderate sunni oppositionists a year to go in there and take on isis. That number is nowhere near large enough. Whatever sunni oppositionist you train are going to go if there and face isis, which is a government the government estimates is anywhere between 20000 and 30,000 guys and assads army. That those sunni oppositionists are going to be taking on both isis and the assad army. So 5,000 a month or a year is nowhere near enough. Rose some people have said youve got to prioritize and not take on the syrian army and what you have to do is first take back whatever isis controls in syria and cut off syria as a place for isis to come to. Right. Right. So now we come back to the iran problem again. And really theres kind of three overlapping fundamental issues i think in the middle east right now. One is this struggle that we and the moderate sunni state have with islamic extremism. Thats been playing out, you know, five or six years before 9 11. Thats at play. The other thing thats at play is the whole arab spring. The the arab spring has an and what the arab spring is at the end of the day is an educated population saying to their governments we dont think we dont think that were going to have a better life and we dont think our kids are going to have a better life under the direction that youre taking this country, and we want to go in a different direction and we want you to go. Thats played out in egypt, its played out in tunisia its played out in syria and its played it will continue to play out in different areas. It is relevant to the terrorism problem because the arab spring has created failed states, created a failed state for a while in egypt, until sisi took matters into his own hands. Its create add i failed state in libya. Look at what its doing right now in yemen. Were at the risk of a failed state in yemen. And its created a failed state in the eastern part of syria. Assad basically still controls the west, but the east nobody controls. Isis controls it. So the arab spring has created this spaild space which is being filled by a void vacuum and thats why they go in, in the first place. Why they go in, in the first place. And then youve got a third problem which gets to your assad question which is there is a cold war going on in the middle east between the moderate sunni states saudi arabia and its gulf allies on the one hand jordan and the emraits. Jordan and the emraits, and iran on the other. And it is a cold war. Tais struggle. It is a fight over the future of the middle east. And the iranians on the one hand you have sunnis, on the other hand you have shia. Its iran shia, its hezbollah shia, its iraq shia. Yes and its yemen shia. Rose and yemen shia. And yemen shia. Rose and even bahrain is shia, right . Yes, it is yes. It is a sunnishia thing, but more than that its a persianarab thing. There is a desire on the part of the iranians to be the hegemonic power in the middle east. There is a desire on the part of the iranians to recreate the persian empire which at one point in its history ruled 44 of the worlds population. Thats what they want to reestablish. And standing in their way is saudi arabia and the moderate sunni states. I believe that its in our interest to back saudi arabia and the moderate sunni states in this struggle between them and iran. Rose why do you believe that . Because we have charlie most people had they read the paper, watch tv, think that our only problem with iran is the Nuclear Program. We have many, many problems with iran. One is this desire to be the most influential power in the region. Rose why isnt that a natural quality for them . I mean should we blame them for doing something the egyptians because the army was once the most powerful party in the region. Saudi arabia because of the oil was a very powerful party in the region. The iranians say well,un, we have a right to be a powerful factor here in this expreegz to want to exercise our power. That doesnt mean that we have to like it, and maybe we have to take sides but thats a legitimate aspiration on the part its a legitimate aspiration but its legitimate policy on our point of view to oppose it. Rose right. Because we dont think that they follow policies that are in our interests. And this is a part of the world that despite this is a part of the world charlie, that despite the Energy Revolution here in the United States and all the oil and natural gas were now producing here that still remains vitally important to us. Rose before i come to deep dive on iran i want to come on this point with respect to assad. Because syria is so critical and we dont have a strategy. Right. Rose what do we need to do . Do we, for example some say its an unspoken thing happening now anyway between assad and what hes doing and what we would like to do. Theres no agreement. Theyre not communicating. Right. Rose but assad said in a recent interview on the bbc, i get information. So i dont know about that, but heres what i do know, right, that i think the way to think about the strategy is but im going to tell you in a minute why its going to be hard to implement i think the strategy is yes, defeat isis first and then take care of assad. Rose thats prioritizing. Thats prioritizing. The problem is these moderate sunni oppositionists that were going to train and send into syria with weapons, theyre not going to share our priority. Their priority is get rid of assad. Rose even though isis is against them. Uhhuh. Rose even though theyre even though it is said that isis wants to eliminate them more than it wants to eliminate assad. So then it will be just then versus assad and not anybody else versus assad. Uhhuh. And i worry without assad you lose all of syria. So thats all of syria looks like libya rather than just the eastern part of it. Rose it becomes a whole group of militias running rampant. Right. But heres the key to the assad piece. If to any extent that assad wins, iran wins. So syria was the perfect state from the iranian perspective. Because syria did whatever essentially, whatever iran wanted it to do. Rose and they gave them an access to lebanon and hezbollah. Exactly. Thats how they got weapons to hezbollah. And hezbollah couldnt exist without the support that it gets from iran. So syriaune syrias important for a lot of reasons to the iranians, so to the extent that assad wins iran wins and thats why this is so hard. Rose before i go to iran you do have a sense that somebodys got to do something now. That this thing is metastasizing, is growing becoming more violent and theyre consoldaight and, yes, theyve been stopped and, yes, at should point theres going to be the launch of a campaign to get back mosul, sooner rather than later, you would assume. And then theres the peshmerga, who say theyre not getting any weapons or anything from americans, give them the weapons and theyll fight and go to mosul themselvess. But were not sending them anything, soy they say. I cant understand why we wouldnt support the peshmerga other were worried about turkey. I know exactly what theyre saying and i dont know but clearly were not doing enough from their perspective. I think we have to accelerate i think we have to accelerate what were doing on the ground, and it doesnt necessarily need to be us, right, but we have to give the peshmerga what they need in fact tshouldnt be us. And it probably shouldnt. Rose except for air and weapons. It probably shouldnt. Rose well except for air and weapons. Right. And let me tell you a reason and advisers. And ill give credit to a former boss of mine. Dave petraeus was a very smart guy when it comes to this kind of stuff when it comes to a lot of stuff. One of the point he made to me when we were talking about this recently is youve got to be careful putting a u. S. Soldier with a group of iraqis. Why . Because you put a u. S. Special forces guy with an iraqi unit and that is that u. S. Special forces guy all of a sudden becomes michael jordan. They bottom become superman and the iraqis step back and watch. They have to do the job themselves at the end of the day. They have to learn to do this themselves. Thats a very powerful argument. Rose but we have to have somebody over there directing the flights and doing that kind of stuff. Thats different. Thats a strategic level as opposed to a tactical level. But i think we have to find countries willing to put people on the ground, whether the jordanianss, the amaradis i think its time to put measure pressure on isis so we start pushing them back. And i think its time to upscale the number of syrian oppositionists were training, and i think we need to speed the rebuilding of the iraqi army. Rose you think thats the president s policy . I hope theyre talking about it. I dont know. Rose you hope theyre talking about it. Im not in the room. Rose the house is on fire so to speak, if you accept that analogy. Yes. Rose what are the arab countries, the sunni arab countries prepared to do, the saudis,ed the jordanians, the emrats prepared to do. Were know theyre sending air strikes. The jordanians have sent air strikes. The egyptians have sent airstrikesstrikes to libya, and the saudis a couple of interesting points. Look way back to when the shia uprising took place in bahrain. The saudis and emrawdies sent in troops and they saved the family in bahrain. They did. Rose but theyre sunni, right . Yes, just over the weekend the g. C. C. , gulf cooperation council, put out a public station saying if the u. N. Doesnt do anything about yemen well we will take matters into our own hands. Rose sisi is talking about coming to the u. N. And that says to me g. C. C. Ground troops in yemen. This is another place where the fight is being played out between iran on the one hand and the gulf arab states on the other. So i think theyre prepared to put in troops into yemen to fight that fight. I think they should also be prepared to put troops into iraq to fight that fight as well. Rose and do you think they will . I think it should be are they closer to it than ever before . Yes and i think we should be encouraging them. Rose to do that . Uhhuh. Rose theyre on the front line of that. Theyre on the front lines. Rose where isis is going. They understand that better than anybody. Rose all right, so back to iran. Iran today has great influence in iraq has great influence in syria, has great influence in lebanon because of hezbollah. Thats three and yemen. Rose and yemen. Four huge influence the most powerful influence. Yes. Rose in those countries from an outside source. Yes yes, yes. And its part of the struggle thats going on absolutely. So let me just go back through the things that bother us about what the iranians are doing. So their desire to be the most powerful country in the middle east not in our interest. It is iranian policy, it is iranian policy for israel to no longer be on the face of the earth. It is iranian policy. The Supreme Leader who is the most powerful person in iran calls the shots on National Security. The president does not have influence on National Security. All National Security decisions are made by the Supreme Leader. The Supreme Leader has called israel a cancer that needs to be cut out. Four days before the interim Nuclear Agreement was first signed in the fall of 2013, the Supreme Leader called the zionists animals and called for israels annihilation. Just last fall just last fall, the Supreme Leader put out a ninepoint plan that would result in israel being removed from the map. Now, to be fair to him its not by force. It would be by a vote. But his ninepoint plan is stacked in a way that that outcome would be guaranteed. And he says in the meantime, before we ever get to that vote we need to continue to provide weapons to israels opponents. And so the iranians want to destroy our most important ally in the middle east. Thats two. Three, the iranians are a state sponsor of terrorism in two ways. First of all they practice terrorism as a tool of state craft. Essentially, one of the only countries left in the world that does that. What do you mean by that, michael . Rose i didnt think id have to ask the question. I thought youd tell me. The Iranian Revolutionary guard force which is independent of the Iranian Military has a group called the kudz force who hangs out in damascus, baghdad and iran, shuttling between them. Rose and reports only to the ayatollah. Correct. The doesnt even report to the head of the i. R. G. C. The kudtz force conducts terrorism around the world. Ill give you an example pps it was the kudtz, who was planning to assassinate the saudi ambassador to the United States in a georgetown restaurant, cafe milano. They were planning to assassinate him. Planning an attack on the saudi embassy, and planning an attack on the Israeli Embassy and that was a kudtz force operation. Rose no doubt about it. No doubt about it. Rose youve seen the evidence. And no doubt it went to the highest levels of of the iranian government. It is not some rogue operation in the kudtz force. Thats one type of statesponsored terrorism. The other type of statesponsored terrorism is support to internationalliy recognized terrorist groups. Palestinian groups attacking israel. Hezbollah, like i said earlier, hezbollah could not exist without the support it receives from iran. Rose hamas. Hamas historically but a little less so now. Rose because . Because they dont like what the iranians are doing in supporting assad so a bit of a rift between iranians and hamas. Before 9 11 hezbollah had killed more americans than any other terrorist group on the planet before 9 11. Most people dont know that. They did the Embassy Bombing in beirut, among other things. Hezbollah, hezbollah, the stated purpose of hezbollahs existence is to destroy israel. And the iranians the iranians provide it with money and weapons. Hezbollah conducts terrorist attacks around the world against israel. You may remember one from a couple of years ago in bulgaria, where hezbollah attacked a group of israeli tourists, mostly young people and killed a handful of them and injured 30some. Hezbollah conducts those attacks that would not be possible without the iranians. Next youve got iranian support to the shia militia groups. You know in some you know, in some ways, thats helpful to us today in iraq because theyre fighting isis. But those same shia groups those same shia groups killed american soldiers in iraq by the dozens and dozens and dozens. Then youve got iranian support to regional insurgent groups. So youve got iranian support to the houthis in yemen and you just saw the result of that. They swept south and took over the cap dal tal. Rose took over the government. Took over the government. And you have iranian support to the shia opposition in bahrain that we talked about. You have awns opposition to the eastern providence in saudi arabia. All of that report is designed to overthrow those rejeems and put in rejeems like you have in syria who are close to iran. Rose okay, this question someone said you have two choices in circumstances like this. You have to either change the regime or change the behavior. So what should be our policy . So the Supreme Leader believes the Supreme Leader believes that is already the policy of the United States to get rid of him and the clerical regime that sits atop the iranian government. Rose is he right . No, hes not. There is not a policy. There is not a policy. Hes wrong about that. Just like putin was wrong that the c. I. A. Was responsible for what happened in the streets of kiev. Rose right. Its nonsense but he believes it. Rose he really does believe it. Ive talked to my russian friends thats hes convinced of it the c. I. A. Did it. And the Supreme Leader thinks the same thing about skyand his regime. Rose those boys think the c. I. A. Is all powerful. Heres the interesting thing about iran and while some people believe that there is a hope, i think you and i have actually talked about this privately before is in those arab tbufl states gulf states that are friends of ours saudi arabia, the Emirates Egypt the leaders of those countries love us. The populations there dont. In fact, the polling shows just the opposite. They dont like us at all. In iran and why is that before we go to iran . Why is it the population they think that we have propped up regimes that have no popular will and so, therefore it, except for us, those regimes would not be in power . I think theres a couple of reasons. I think they blame us for many of their problems. They blame us for our support of israel. And they do see us as as propping up regimes the people of saudi arabia, for example. Yes that theyre unhappy with. Some, certainly not all. Rose then guto iran where the ayatollah and the clerics despises the United States. Sees the United States as the devil but the people of iran love us, culturally love us music clothes western films. Western films western books. Its really interesting. 45 of the population in iran is 25 and younger. And thats where most of these feelings are about positive feelings are about glus and you see it erupt as it did when there was a contested election. Thats when it came up and then it sort of got slapped down and put in jail and put under house arrest. There are some people that see hope here over the long term. There are some people that believe that a nuclear deal would allow the beginnings of a conversation with the iranians that would lead to less distrust on both side and to better relations ultimately. Im skeptical of that for two reasons. One is youre talking about a very very long time, i think. Because this current leadership is entrenched. You know, the demographics are such that that generation in iran that fought in the iraniraq war, when they believed we were on the side of saddam hussein. Rose we were we were, we were. They got that one right. You know, that generation despises us. That generation is going to be in power for quite some time. Thatthey are going to be around for a long time. This change if it comes will be very, very slow. Then it the other is even in our own society, people get more conservative as they age. It just happens. So these people who like us today and see us as one thing today, may well grow out of that as they move on in their life and get jobs that require them to have a different view. I mean it happens to all of us. And so im worried about how long it will take to get there, and what could happen in the meantime. So you but let me interrupt before you say that. Suppose so what was ayatollah hominys letter to the president about . If we can do these Nuclear Deals maybe we can cooperate in iraq with respect to putting down isis . That is what it supposedly was i didnt think it. Rose i didnt either. But what do people think it was about. Whats the conventional wisdom among intelligence types gidont know. Rose not people in the c. I. A. Now. I want to be clear what im saying. The Supreme Leaders view most likely about the Nuclear Talks the Supreme Leaders view has been all along that if we cut a deal theres got to be sanctions relief immediately, full sanctions relief immediately. And were for kind of staged sanctions relief. I think thats what it was probably about. I think it was probably just pushing his view about the way this should but obama has written him in the past, too. Uhhuh. Rose same idea, lets figure out how to do this. Now speaking to the president , i mean he clearly has said, even ben rhodes had said fhe can do the nuclear deal with iran it will be the crowning achievement of Barack Obamas Foreign Policy in this second term. If we can do a nuclear deal that is a good nuclear deal. Rose well, that depends on how you define that too, doesnt it. How many centrifuges you leave operational. I have a very specific definition about what i think is a good deal and a bad deal. Rose which is . So now we come to the Nuclear Agreement or the the Nuclear Problem which sits atop this whole thing, right. The iranians have the Technical Capability to build a weapon. Iranians have the Technical Capability to build a weapon. If they want to build one, they can build one. Rose they have the knowhow and the means. They have the knowhow and the means. Thats what theyve developed over the past number of years. So whether they do or not will depend totally on whether they want to or not. I believe the Supreme Leader wants a weapon. And i believe that his plan is to eventually get a weapon. So what matters in this it nuclear deal and what doesnt . So i think this is mike morell talking. This is not the administration. This is not c. I. A. , this is mike morell. I think the debate over the number of centrifuges is misplaced. Because the number of centrifuges were talking about the number of centrifuges at declared facilities, facilities that have been declared to the International Atomic energy agency, right. That are inspected regularly by the International Atomic energy agency. Rose you said they want one. They want to build one now, and if they dont, why not . Heres what i can say. I can say that up till up until 2003, they were building one. In 2003 they stopped. Rose and we know about the guy who left and went back they stopped. Why did they stop . Most people believe they stopped because we had just invaded iraq over weapons of mass destruction,ing and the Supreme Leader was afraid wed do the same thing to him, right . Rose which was the same opinion held by gaddafi. Right. Rose right . Am i right about that . Yes. Rose they looked at what we did in iraq and said we dont want that. And the North Koreans are thinking were glad we got this done in time. So they stopped. The 2007 National Intelligence estimate which has been declassified said that they stopped in 2003. But it also said that, that the analysts at the at the time believed that their goal was to get close to get as close as possible so they can dash to a weapon if they decide to but they hadnt decided to do it yet. I cant tell you, charlie, whether the analysts still believe that today or not because i dont know, but i will tell you i dont believe it. I believe they have made a decision. When leon was testify ago. Rose made a decision . That the Supreme Leader has made a decision that iran will have a Nuclear Weapon some day. I believe that. Rose you do remember panetta saying that. He was saying what our analysts believe. And thats what i said. I used to say what our analysts believed. Now im allowed to say what i believe. So i believe that he will that he has made a decision to eventually get a weapon. Rose why do you believe that . Because i believe that why put all this effort into this Nuclear Program pre2003, and then continuing post23 with all of the work on the centrifuges, why build the gome facility. I believe the enrichest facility the underground enrichment facility outside of goal, their religious capital, that was a convert facility and we caught them and they made it public before we did. Rose here is the argument being made. We made it to sanctions made it too high a price to pay to have a Nuclear Weapon and that was why they were prepared to stop. And they did freeze it in place. Hu. Rose thats what the agreement has done, the interim agreement. Right. Lets come back to the deal. So i dont think the focus should be on the number of centrifuges. In fact theres a great irony here. 5,000 accept the fiewjs is if youre just going to have a Nuclear Weapons program, 5,000 centrifuges is pretty much the number you need. If youre going to have a Power Program you need a lot more centrifuges. By limiting them to a small number of centrifuges were limiting to the number you need for a weapon. The great irony here. Rose why dont we recognize that . I dont know. Rose its a very important question. You dont know. Im not around the table anymore, charlie. Rose you know what kind of arguments theyd make. By limiting the number of centrifuges you are limiting their ability to use those declared facilities to break out. I just dont think thats how theyre going to do it. I think theyre going to do it by building another convert facility. What i do think we should focus on . I think we should focus on three things. I think we should focus on not letting them do any more r d work, research and Development Work onanced centrifuges. They have a basic centrifuge designed and a slightly advanced centrifuge design. They would like to do work on even more advanced centrifuge designs. I wouldnt allow them to do that anymore. Why . Because an advanced centrifuge produces enriched uranium at a much, much, faster rate. I would say that has to be part of the deal. The other thing i would say, they are building and i think this is part of our discussion with them. They are building a plutonium reaction arak. They dont have the capability today to produce plutonium for a weapon. I dont think we should allow them that capability. So thats got to be part of the deal. And the third area, because it is so because a convert facility is the way theyre likely going to go, i. A. E. Inspectors have to be able to go anywhere in that country any time they want. Rose so therefore we dont have a deal. Do we have some interim deal . We dont get the deal but we get some kind of irnlim agreement. Heres the problem. I dont know to what extent people have thought about the implications of no deal. And the end of negotiations. What happens . You know from the iranian perspective they unfreeze everything that they froze. What do we do . Do we the sanctions never came off. A few came off. We put those back backon. Do we put more singleses on them . Do we do anything else . Do the israelis do anything from a military perspective . I dont think anybody has thought through the implications of no deal. Better start doing that. Rose so you already believe they can build a weapon. If they want to. Rose if they make a decision to. Rose so you dont have an agreement. You dont have an interim agreement. You have no agreement. And they start building. How long is the socalled breakout time . Is it a month . Is it two months . It depend, right. So my analysts my analysts used to look at the declared facilities and youd look at the state of the declared facilities, how many centrifuges, what kind of centrifuges, how much low enriched uranium theyve already produced and my analysts could tell you threemonth breakout sixmonth breakout, whatever it was. It was getting shorter and shorter and shorter over time. But nobody believes that thats the way theyre going to do it. Everybody believes some convert thing. Convert facilities. How long would it take . It depend on whether they have a convert facility or not . Rose so youre sitting there in the white house and you say, damn it may be a month, it may be two months. Maybe they have a convert facility. We dont know where it is. Right. Rose and maybe Israeli Intelligence tells you theyre going to have a Nuclear Weapon. We dont know where theyre going to produce it, but theyre going to have one in tbhongz three months. Theyll have one by the end of 2015. What do you do if youre president . What do you strike . Because you dont know where it is. Right . You know, if first of all, do you strike . Thats a tough question, too. Because i believe it will turn all the iranians against you. Yes and end any hopes of that theres no deal after that. Theres no deal after that. And if the analysts are right, and if the analysts are right about they havent made a decision yet boy, nothings going to make them make a decision faster to get a weapon than bombing them, right . Theyre going to say hey, they didnt do this to north korea, and north korea has a weapon. Which is why i think he has already made a decision. He wants a weapon for two reasons i think. One is he believes were trying to overthrow him and his regime. Whats his best guarantee against that . A Nuclear Weapon. And he wantaise Nuclear Weapon because he sees it as part of this regional influence. And it would make a difference. Rose so if he get a weapon, if iran gets a weapon, the conventional wisdom is the saudis could have a weapon from pakistan nay month. Thats the conventional wisdom. I dont upon if its true. Rose it seems to me time is of the essence. Were look at severe problems. Nobody is going to change the regime internally do you think . No. And you asked earlier should we change the regime. Our batting average with changing regimes is not very good. Rose period. Is not very gooding. Rose period. Even if we could im not sure we should. Rose does does the c. I. A. Take responsibility for that . For. Rose for not changing rejeems well . No, no no. Rose well who do you think its not getting rid of the person thats hard. Its what follows. Rose whose responsibility is that . Look at iraq. Look at iraq. Getting rid of saddam at the end of the day was not that hard. Replacing saddam with somebody who could actually run the place very very hard. Rose but we also were misled by a bunch of bad people, too. Some of the people we supported who felt they were sure, sure. But, you know, there was a reason why saddam ran the place the way he did. Theres a reason he ran it with an iron fist. Rose the story was, was saddam the way he was because of the way iraq was or was iraq the way it was because of the way he is. Probably a little of both. Qadavi kept islamic extremists under control. So no, we dont have a very good track record. Rose back to isis. Two very fundamental problems in the middle east. Isil and iran. Both of them are significantly detrimental to u. S. National security interests both of them. And yet theres this weird relationship between the two of them. Where the iranians are actually helping us with isil. Rose the interesting thing, too is that in Public Opinion polls, whatever they mean, if anything more and more people have come to the conclusion they want to see the United States do something about isil. Recent, yesterday the day before. The percentage is larger. I think its pretty even, not a majority of one or the other. But all these beheadings and burning a jordanian pilot alive and decapitating 22 christians in libya has created some sense that it reminds people that this is these are crimes against civilization. Right. You have to wander about why theyre doing it, right . Rose which is the interesting question. I think theyre doing it because they see it as keeping their name in the news. That they continue, right to dominate news cycle everywhere. And, boy, does that feel good right, if youre isil. Rose it has always been about attracting attention. Thats the point of it. I dont think that theyve thought through the downside. If we sat down with them we would advise them, dont do this. Youre actually hurting your brand. Youre actually turning people against you. Rose but al qaeda and bin laden advised isil dont go for caliphate. Dont do that now. Dont go for an Islamic State. And remembers zarqawi who created al qaeda in iraq which has now become isil that bin laden counseled him to not be so dont kill shia. Dont kill civilians. Dont mistreat people. Rose the other argument beyond the two youve cited is the attention is somehow they want their crazy strategy is to draw us into it and get more adhere ents on their side that theyre somehow trying to get us involved. I dont know if thats their strategy. Rose im just saying that was certainly bin ladens. Rose this is an argument. It was bin ladens strategy to brau of draw us into afghanistan and he was pleased to be able to draw us into it he didnt draw us in, but pleased we went into iraq. Certainly you can saw this certainly you can say this, that the creation of the coalition, the u. S. And Coalition Air strikes have helped their brand. It really wasnt until we went to war with them and i think was the right decision but one of the down sides of that is it gives them a propaganda tool to use in their radicalization and they certainly have. Rose and recruitment. And recruitment. Rose mike morell, thank you. Good to be with you. Rose mike morell for the hour. Thank you for joining us. See you next time. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. This is nightly Business Report with Tyler Mathisen and sue herera. Record setter. New highs for the s p 500 and the russell 2000. Why stocks shrugged off worries. Yield spike. Whats happening in one of the biggest markets in the world . Treasuries. What it could mean for your investment. Danger on the rails. Two rains carrying crude run off the track. West virginias governor declares a state of emergency in two counties. Tonight, the growing risk as america ships more and more oil in tanker cars. All that and more tonight on nightly Business Report for tuesday, february 17th. Good evening, everyone. Im Tyler Mathisen. Sue herera is off tonight. Well put it in the record books. The