Madeline albright. Black stones president , tone know james, and well cap it off with dpaer white along with Actor Matt Damon. So we have a lot to do today. Lets talking about breaking news overnight. American fighter jets going into syria and bombing isis targets. The u. S. Did warn american fighters in advance. Five arab partners are involved. The pentagon confirms they went after 20 targets. Fuel depots, weapons spots and traini ining sites. Israel shot down a fighter jet after it entered air space. Oil prices are rising. Joining us now, retires u. S. Army current jack jacob is here. On the set with us, chief washington correspondent john harwood. Colonel, i will start with you. The implications of this coming much kicker than i think some people expected, no . Yes. Its developing relatively quickly. The problem with syria is the entire armed force system has been under pressure that it is totally incorporate nated. It is possible the syrian aircraft lost its way. It doesnt make a lot of sense. In addition to that, israel has an excellent Early Warning system. So detection of aircraft coming in its direction is extremely good. Israel doesnt waste a lot of time. Colonel, explain this. We have bahrain, qatar, the ewe nated arab emirates. Is that theater, is it real and how important is it . Its important for Public Relations purposes, but the contributions being made are relatively small. And the one country you didnt mention who so far is not part of the coalition is perhaps the most important one and thats turkey. Turkey has been quite obstructionist in our attempt to put the lid on isis and, indeed, turkey has been the condue yid for a large portion of the oil that isis is selling in order to fund its operations. In addition to that, turkey has been the source recently of the largest number of new recruits for isis. Turkey has said that it wants to participate. It said that yesterday. But it remains to be seen whether or not they will and to what extent they will. So a lot of the coalition so far is Public Relations. You spend time with folks in the white house. Theyve been trying to put together a coalition. Now at least they have it. Yes. Public relations are important. You have to show that you have allies. Everybody knows that were carrying the ball. What we need and we dont have yet is a ground force of moderate sunnis to fight isis and, no, this is air escorts and other which then raises the question, colonel, should they have waited . Was there a possibility had they waited before making the air strikes they would have been able to get to on the ground or you think that was never going to happen . It might not happen. At the end of the day, air strikes have only utility in supporting ground operations and ground operations is whats really needed to hold terrain. But these targets, which we detected have been following for quite some time. These targets are extremely lucrative. What you want to do is degrade isis with these targets. This is a perfect time, as a matter of fact, theres an argument that says having known where the targets were and what they were, they should have done after them sooner. This is going to be a long operation. Its typically air praises like this, whether theyre by themselves or in supported ground operations, usually take some time. So there would be a valuation of the targets, there will be a second wave, third wave of targets. And maybe there was the decision was based at least on that timing, as well. But its taking place with an election about 40 days away. But i dont think this is wag the dog two or three. If it was a republican president , it might be showing strength. But he didnt want to do this, i dont think. No. And it might have helped with people, inspects and others. Yes. For a lot of people who think the president has been weak or indecisive on foreign affairs, this may be the emotional high point of this operation, which when you get the shock of, yes, we just bombed syria and but as colonel jacobs said, this is going to be very long. We could get bogged down by november with a lot progress, right . Well, i dont know how quickly you get bogged down. One other factor, andrew, is that there have been reports of an im spending mass occur of syrian curts. That is another reason to strike. I think as jack jacobs just indicated, the timing is interesting and possibly instructive because it will provide an instant reality check for the support that the United States has for this. Stay where you are, john, because were going to come back to you in just a moment. We want to thanks colonel jack jacobs for her perspective. Lets bring in aymon jabbers. He has it all. Chuck schumer said this will do nothing and other legislative action is really going to help in this case. But yeah, can you explain what youre doing, anyway . Yeah. Theres a chorus up on capitol hill saying exactly that. That is because lawmakers all want to do something. They want to do some kind of tax reform. The problem is theres not the political will up on capitol hill to do this legislatively. That is why jack lieu yesterday say the treasury simply cant afford to wait and launched a series of regulatory changes that are within the treasury and irss authority to what they call the curb, the appetite for tax inversions among federal operations here. Theyre putting headquarters overseas at such a quick rate here. Its hurting the u. S. Tax base. Weve got a full screen showing the details of exactly what the treasury announced yesterday. It would serve u. S. Tax through loans, but prevent Inverted Companies from restructuring foreign subsidiaries to access earnings tax free. Strength trengten the requirements that foreign owners own less than 8el 0 of the new company. The bottom line here is what theyre trying to do is make these things more expensive and costly and less appealing to u. S. Companies. I asked a senior treasury official about this yesterday. He said the concern is not cost immediately, but the sale of cost. When these companies invest, that means the company lose revenue in this year and all these years. So real anxiety on the part of treasury, joe. Okay. Stay tuned, ayman and watch whats happening in washington. Try to keep on the Washington Bureau for you. Do that for us. And lock some of the doors around there, also. Weve learned that you do need to lock doors, particularly the front door. A lot of people say i live in a neighborhood where we dont even lock the door. But in this day and age, i think now we know. Did you notice how hard it was to get into this hotel this morning . Yeah, i did notice that. I already have credentials with my name and everything else. Joe, we now have air strikes in syria and against Corporate Tax at the same time. Yes. And we Vice President seen you in new jersey recently. Youve come to new york. Its like a its a deskic set. This is you. Its global. Youre home. Buckeye, i cant even see you when i look i blend in with the background. Can we talk inversions . Do we think theres going to be a legal case against the irs or treasuries for whats happening . Does it hold up whats happening next . Youre always vulnerable to legal challenges, but i think the treasury is pretty confident that they have the authority to do this. The question is, a, how big is the problem and, by, how much of a dent does this make in the problem . This is also Public Relations. Its not a huge economic impact. Its not a huge revenue impact. Its something, but its not we all want Corporate Tax reform, does it dampen the enthusiasm for it or increase it . Pretty much everything dampened the enthusiasm because its wet. I dont see a huge problem on a grand stale with what theyve done today. You have a breaching across the aisle and having both sides coming to the table to get what they want. Wink we have begun a long conversation in this country about reform of both the individual and the corporate codes. But that conversation is going to play out for a while. Do you think those two things happen at the same time . Republicans are insisting that they happen at the same time. In part because you have so many pass throughs that if you dont solve the problem for the individual code, the corporate reform may want accomplish much. Its very difficult to find the right moment. The one positive thing you can say about it is theres wide spread agreement in both parties that its needed. Actually, each on the individual side, if you could make it happen. But its certainly fought going to be in this presidency, maybe it will be in the next presidency. One sort of fine point on this, the way the treasury put out the statement, it suggested the deals start yesterday. Use the word close, which said to me burger king announced, but not closed. So it is retroactive for potentially the handful if not half a dozen, a dozen deals. If its 23409 closed, its not done. There was also a date put out by ron weiden which is that he which he initiated the process of looking at this, i think may 8th was the date you put out saying companies were on notice that anything back to may 8th could be susceptible to any new law that was passed. Thats out there in the waters. Its 20 billion over ten years that were trying to save. Do you know how quickly we go through 20 billion . Definitely. And the election is coming up. You can make political hey with this and everything. I think the administration sees this as a way you know, no one ever went broke against and didnt get electioned passing corporations. But the other thing is that, you know, its not going to stop anything with Foreign Companies being able to buy u. S. Companies and to have it be more attractive to them because they can do it they can immediately make mother money than what their american counter parts can make. So it really doesnt do anything. Lets check on the markets this morning and well take a quick look at what were seeing. Yesterday was not agreed in kerms of the action. I think some of it had to do with baba down 4 or so. If you do the math on how many shares are outstanding, these are big swings in valuation. Normal people did not get in on the ipo price. Now were down below 90. Well see what happens. By the way, that weakness is coming despite better than expected manufacturing numbers coming in. We were describing some of the weakness yesterday. It came in better than expected. Now that youre worth as much as walmart not any more, but you better do pretty well. The numbers you put up better be pretty good. Theres always the question how much stock you put in the numbers that youre seeing, as well. Lets check out oil quickly. Oil has been something that weve been happy about in terms of what this might do for the consumer and its still a tennit globe economy. Coming up, what does this do, what does it take to do business in africa . The connegligents youngest billionaire will tell us about some of the opportunities and maybe some of the big challenges in africa, including the growing ebola epidemic takesing western africa right now. You hear a mortality rate of 70 and thats staggering. That is next when squawk box, live from the Clinton Global Initiative, when we return. Sfwhoo welcome back to squawk box. The World Health Organization is now warning that we could see 20,000 new cases by november. Infections are expected to climb exponentially unless patients are isolated and, even worse than first expected, a 70 thans that people will die if they contract the virus. 70 mortality rate. And were seeing mortality rates even higher. This is a very dangerous situation and we are, of course, watching all of it. The deadly virus is a major concern for those investing in africa, as well. Joining us now is a name you need to know. People call him africas youngest million air. From technology to manufacturing, real estate to Financial Services and agriculture. It has operations in 22 subsa rare ran countries can more than 11,000 employees. Sir, thank you so much for boeing with us. Its great to have you here. Thank you. I dont think people realize the enormity of what youve done. You started when you have just 15 years old selling computers. Tell us about that. Thats right. My family has been in east africa for over 120 years. So im a fourth generation. We got kicked out, lost everything, came back to rwanda in 93. We came out okay, but unfortunately lost everything again. And that is when i felt like i wanted to and needed to do something. So i quit school, took a 50,000 loan. So 5,000 loan that youve now turned into a 1 billion enterprise. How did you do that along the way . African is such an opportunity. But were looked at as a country and not a continent. You have to truly be local, but at the same time, operate in a global manner. It wasnt by design, it was by default, frankly, that i feel traveling sprying i. T. Equipment. That gave me a deep understanding that all of our markets are so unique. Weve all got our cultures, politics, parliaments, so its all about the bet of lovely and the best of global. When youre dealing with that many lovely governments, that many parliaments, how are you able to jump from country to country and grow just as rapidly . Thankly, that is the opportunity. Sometimes we generalize. We look at the east african countries and we think having presence in some of those countries gives you access to all five. It doesnt. What is the breakdown in terms of your business country by country. I assume theres one or two country thats make up the joft of it, or no . No. Core businesses, real estate and hospitality, banking. So were quite divert. In terms of country, rwanda represents what percentage versus tanzania versus were very suppress. Nigeria is a very big market for us. But otherwise, were very, very spread. So no one particular market acts for a majority. The largest region where we have exposure is probably the east of can community. The connegligent as a whole has made amazing progress. How does ebola concern you and what needs to be done . Global virus is a very serious issue. I think it is a serious concern, how, it does get ex aim rated, as always. Ive been traveling around west africa for the last few weeks. The governments are doing a great job. Nigeria is a great case. Theyve been able to contain it very well. They didnt need global agents flocking in the and trying to help. They have been able to do it themselves which is a huge accomplishment for our country. When lots of International Agencies come in. Start working, it does become challenging. Everybody is coming with the right intent but the wrong message. I think there is a lot we can learn from this. Better cohesion could have been a great strategy because of the fact our boarders are so free. As a whole, i think our governments are doing a great job. I think its exaggerated. Do you feel comfortable, completely safe traveling as you do . Frankly, i do feel absolutely comfortable and safe. Theres a lot of precautions. You get through Health Checks before you actually enter the office building. So there are a lot of precautions that have been taken that as citizens you can live normally, but work within the modality. How do they health check . Do they take your temperature . Yeah, they do. They take your temperature. Theres hand sanitizing. Do you deal with infrastructure issues in the last ten years . How much better and how long will it take before you never think about infrastructure issues . Its a great question. Infrastructure is obviously a big challenge. And the fact that as a continent, were physically larger. But i think these are huge opportunities. Were doing manufacturing in quite a lot of opportunities. It is such a challenge. So things like that, you can actually look into. Have i seen an improvement . There is so much room. I think maybe you should get into infrastructure. Will you be around . Lets talk about this. You dont realize how big the vast spaces that were talking about here. How do you nap gat that yourself . Infrastructure palgs which challenges such as power are against the entire country. Everybody is on the same Playing Field. Everybody is facing the same challenges. But youre absolutely right. It is a huge opportunity. What is your tax rate . A lot of it is british tax law so its. The chinese have had a lot of interest and have been very active in the United States and it seems like there have been more coming in. Are there companies that you see as the biggest on the Playing Field there . China has always invested quite heavily. My joke is we are the final destination. Its been amazing, the majority of capital we were able to raise came from the United States. There is a keen appetite to invest. I want to thank you so much for joining us today. Its been a pleasure. Thank you very much. Bob diamond, will be joining us on the show, the former chief executive of barclays will be on the program on friday morning. When we come back, we have a lot to talk about. What are sales of toilets saying about the health of the American Economy and the Housing Market . The ceo of American Standard is going to tell us when he joins us live. Plus, the beginning of the big market flush investors have been steering all year . Were going to take a trip inside the numbers later on squawk. Back in just a moment. Your customers, our financing. Your aspirations, our analytics. Your goals, our technology. Introducing synchrony financial, bringing new meaning to the word partnership. Banking. Loyalty. Analytics. Synchrony financial. Enagage with us. Big day . Ah, the usual. Moved some new cars. Hauled a bunch of steel. Kept the supermarket shelves stocked. Made sure everyone got their latest gadgets. Whats up for the next shift . Ah, nothing much. Just keeping the lights on. laugh nice. Doing the big things that move an economy. See you tomorrow, mac. See you tomorrow, sam. Just another day at norfolk southern. Good morning. Welcome back to squawk box here on cnbc. Im joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin. Were reporting live from the Clinton Global Initiative in new york. Overnight, our top stories was developing u. S. Led air strikes under way in syria. Five arab partners are involved. We have some video as its unconfirmed by nbc news, it kams to be the aftermath. Jim joins us from the pentagon. Good morning, joe. This was a substantial u. S. Military air strike ag