tried to pull off. always appreciate you on the show. always, chris. take care, senator. alisyn? now, to this breaking news. israeli defense officials say they have hit iranian targets in syria after a rocket in that area attacked the golan heights. it comes just a day after the u.s. withdrew from the iran nuclear deal. here to discuss this and so much more, former u.s. ambassador to russia under the obama administration, michael mcfaul, author of from cold war to hot peace about russia and his time spent as ambassador. mr. ambassador, thanks for being here. thanks for having me. let s start with the increasing tension between israel and iran. we just had republican congressman of florida on. he thinks the white house should consider military action against iran if this isn t tamped down. what do you think is next? well, it s very serious,
i call the book from cold war to hot peace to make sure people don t confuse our time today with the cold war, but in many aspects, the hot peace is more dangerous and more volat e volatile. in the soviet days, they didn t meddle with our elections. in the late soviet days after stalin, they didn t annex crimea, and they didn t have dictators like assad killing hundreds of thousands of people. he s a dangerous person, and i think we need to push back on him to stop him, both in terms of what he does to the united states, but also what he does to our allies and small d democrats around the world trying to fight for their own autonomy in places like ukraine. what has been, michael, the most surprising to you about this russia story, especially as it relates to the 2016 election and this administration? so vladimir putin has, and his government, have tremendous capabilities to listen to your
strange to me, and i know ben rhodes and colin call. i worked with them in the government. they are very honorable people who served america well. you can disagree or agree whether the iran deal is a good deal or not, but to do this as a way to undermine the deal, i think, is truly unamerican. russia is at the center of so much happening on the globe as far as us trying to meddle in people s elections politically, obviously. their influence is playing out at the center of american politics. are things as bad as they seem, russia s interference when it comes to american politics and trying to fool with other people s elections, meddle in other people s elections? i think they are. i call the book from cold war to hot peace to make sure people don t confuse our time today with the cold war, but in many aspects, the hot peace is more dangerous and more volatile. in the soviet days, they didn t meddle with our elections. in the late soviet days after
bad? joining us now is michael, the former u.s. ambassador to russia, author of the very timely new book from cold war to hot peace an american ambassador in putin s russia, mr. ambassador, great to see you. thank you for joining us. congratulations on the book. fun to be on the set. great to have you here. congratulations both on the timing and the accomplishment of this. thank you. let me just ask, in terms of news right now, putin sworn in today for another six years, when he was first president, it was only a four-year term. now it s six years. this will be his 18th year in office. correct. depending on how you count the prime ministership. but he essentially seems like he was running the place while he was prime minister. do you think he ll be in office in office until he dies? probably so. he doesn t have a political party or a successor and there are people around him that depend on him for their money, the oligarchs, some of those people you showed in the video
the past comments. retired u.s. army general, a decorated combat of vietnam and a former battlefield commander and a u.s. ambassador to russian what and author of book from cold war to hot peace and nbc analysts. ambassador, i m going to start with you. there are a lot of questions that a lot of people have. and we don t have a deep understandi understanding of why russia is interested in syria. why the sudden about-face of donald trump. you have been on the show discussing that president trump will never criticize vladimir putin or russia. why now on this topic? i didn t expect the tweet from the president. he tweeted other things where he blamed special counsel muler and