diplomacy. it was interesting. he started with harsh words with several countries. assad, slaughtering tens of thousands of his own people, russia calling out the sovereignty of ukraine, with china in the south china sea and even with iran, saying iran following this deal is, in his words, using violent proxies to advance their interest. as he called them out with tough words, these are countries he s working with. he said on syria he would be willing to work with anyone, including russia and iran, to solve the problem there. he has proven he s willing to work with iran. he has this nuclear deal. in effect saying, and of course he s continuing to talk to china, despite the many differences there. so, tough words for them, citing the very real difficulties that they have and differences, but proving, in effect, his point, or at least arguing for his point by saying, i will work with them if we can find a way forward and painting that as a possible path forward in places like syria, wher
office, but certainly is in a lot worse shape seven years in. to have more specifics about what he s going to do. we re going to hear from president putin a little bit later. we are expecting he s going to offer a lot of specifics about what he s going to do in syria. you ve seen this russian military buildup. when the president criticizes president putin, when he talks about assad s brutal dictatorship, i think people are looking for more ideas of what the u.s. will do, not what other countries shouldn t do. hopefully we ll hear more about that this week with secretary of state kerry s meetings and president putin s meeting with obama. we ll be hearing from president rouhani. christiane, you interviewed him. we ll hear from him as he addresses the united nations. bottom line, he s come to the conclusion that assad will stay. really, the issue is, do we just try to beat isis and then get rid of assad or not?
and those may be competing agendas. you heard him talk about this managed transition. not immediate. there was an understanding that, you know, eventually there needs to be more political reform and the opposition having a say, but this whole idea of managed transition, even shows that the u.s. does not expect assad to leave right away and knows that if he were, there would be a lot more chaos for isis to capitalize on. bashar al assad held on for four years in the face of enormous pressure internally and externally. mike rogers is with us, cnn commentator, former chair of the house intelligence, and other experts standing by. what jumped out at you? it seemed like a bit of a legacy speech. he missed an important i want to tell our viewers, we re showing president obama leaving the united nations.
[ applause ] the president of the united states delivering about a 45-minute address before the united nations. addressing the world on critically important issues. christiane amanpour, making a very, very strong, powerful case that diplomacy as opposed to military action should be the key right now to resolving so many of these tragedies that are unfolding. that s right. he made an impassioned plea saying that, you know, cooperation over conflict is not weakness, it is strength. he talked about syria, saying we are not opposed to diplomacy, even with russia and iran. however, defeating isis does not mean returning to the status quo. you cannot have somebody like bashar al assad, he says, who spilsz barrel bombs filled with
if countries are going to be focusing on the common enemy which isi isil which is a good and proper thing, but if they are taking means to prop up bashar a al assl assad, then it. what is your thought on that? well, he is making trouble by sending the warplanes to syria, and prop up the regime of bashar al assad, and even at the meet ing that he we assess that he is going to the contradictory against the u.s. position, because bashar a al assad is still in power, and when we talk about the common partners, we have to keep in mind that russia is the largest country in the