like to speak spanish too much. i think there was some pride issue there. he didn t feel comfortable in his own skin, in his own culture. he was very quiet. he sometimes turned in assignments, sometimes not. i tried to, you know, break him a little bit and try to get into him a little bit and ask him questions. hey, what s going on with you? i believe he was in jrotc at the time. sometimes he d come in in uniform. i communicated a couple of times with the jrotc professor and said, you know, hey, what s going on with this kid? i know the members of jrotc are usually very disciplined students. it was unusual for him not to be disciplined. right. very out of character. you know, i remember him physically. you know, small in stature. nice looking kid but very quiet.
generation. if we don t hit them we don t know what the ayatollah is up to. with the story in the headlines today is very troubling. it looks like this is a matter of pride with them now. they don t want to take out the nuclear material. that s a pride issue. it s not a question we need to combine it with other xhem chemicals and ruin it. it s do you take anything away from us. national pride. we ve got to figure out how to get through this. i ve always believed if there were one country on the globe that you could flip that would monumentally change the geopolitical stage, it would be iran. they are. they are a great country with a great history that have had a very, very rough 30 years. and broadening reach in the region. still ahead on morning joe we re going to take you inside that m doed germanwings flight just moments before the crash. plus, dr. brzezinski on how the united states should approach the widening chaos across the region we ve been talking about the middle east.
well, maybe we can get one out of two. there s a pride issue here. there is a legacy issue. the u.s. military s prestige is on the line. generally the consensus is iraq didn t go very well, and they re hoping that if afghanistan doesn t totally fall to pieces that it will be something of a saving grace for the military, that they can pull out from this experience and say, look, we didn t fail over this last decade in our foreign endeavors, we didn t launch these wars only to see chaos and turmoil in the wake. but the question is, going back to iraq and going back to afghanistan, and these aren t theoretical issues. these are issues that we re going to face right now. what would have happened if the u.s. left a small force in iraq of a few thousand? we can never know, but i think you can have a pretty good idea. let s say we had left behind 5,000, 6,000 troops. 10,000 troops, even, in iraq. would that have been enough to stop the civil war from breaking
shadowing the decision-making process and the debate about how to leave afghanistan? are those parallels being drawn? reporter: i think they are being drawn 100%. i spoke to a commander who said, well, maybe we can get one out of two. there s a pride issue here. there is a legacy issue. the u.s. military s prestige is on the line. generally the consensus is iraq didn t go very well, and they re hoping that if afghanistan doesn t totally fall to pieces that it will be something of a saving grace for the military, that they can pull out from this experience and say, look, we didn t fail over this last decade in our foreign endeavors, we didn t launch these wars only to see chaos and turmoil in the wake. but the question is, going back to iraq and going back to afghanistan, and these aren t theoretical issues. these are issues that we re going to face right now. what would have happened if the u.s. left a small force in iraq of a few thousand?
reporter: i think they are being drawn 100%. i spoke to a commander who said, well, maybe we can get one out of two. there s a pride issue here. there is a legacy issue. the u.s. military s prestige is on the line. generally the consensus is iraq didn t go very well, and they re hoping that if afghanistan doesn t totally fall to pieces that it will be something of a saving grace for the military, that they can pull out from this experience and say, look, we didn t fail over this last decade in our foreign endeavors, we didn t launch these wars only to see chaos and turmoil in the wake. but the question is, going back to iraq and going back to afghanistan, and these aren t theoretical issues. these are issues that we re going to face right now. what would have happened if the u.s. left a small force in iraq of a few thousand? we can never know, but i think you can have a pretty good idea. let s say we had left behind 5,000, 6,000 troops.