libya isn't syria; syria isn't libya. it was a mistake to head to the united nations security council. >> ros we connue this ening with russia's ambassador to the united nations, vity churkin. >> if i understand our sort of mode of thinking correctly, you cannot expect or you can actual count on it if you're our ally that we're not going to turn around overnight and say, wl, you know, we've had good relations with you over the years but now thanks, no thanks, deal with your problems, we're not going to do anything about it. but it's not... again, it's very important to understand it's not our effort to support anybody specifically staying in power. >> rose: we conclude with a look back at the super bowl with espn's adam schefter. >> i think it was not a great game. i think there were so many mistakes made along the way. dropped balls,oaching errors, mistakes that it prevented it from being a game for the ages. but it had a dramatic ending with a real interesting, intriguing way that it ended with the failed hail mary and

and what martha is suggesting they are going to carry on talking about libya over the next week or so and that mitt romney did it again today, you know, suggests to me they think they have got something here that shows mitt romney as a leader, as a commander in chief. >> it also, they had a planned answer on libya, which they didn't quite fully execute but it is supposed to go this way which is to say the campaign, the .. campaign suggested, a member of the obama campaign suggested this wouldn't be such a bi bigg deal if mitt romney ad ryan didn't bring it up, it is an excuse, first it is the film and we didn't get the right intelligence and now it is the ryan and romney are talking about this and that's why, but the administration is not on the case, a, and b, they are just minting new excuses. they are not doing -- fix fixing it, they are just coming up with excuses, then they are going to pivot to the larger argument which that is the way it is on the economy, they blame bush they don't have a solution, they blame atms and blame japan and they blame a whole bunch of different thing

ambassador to libya, chris stevens, was killed in benghazi, libya, yesterday along with three other embassy staff members in rocket strikes by militants. the attack fell on the anniversary marking september 11. angry protesters had targeted the u.s. consulate after obscene clips from an american-made video mocking the prophet mohammed surfaced in the arab media. president obama condemned the violent acts in a statement from the rose garden this morning. >> there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. none. the world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts. already many libyans have joined us in doing so. and this attack will not break the bonds between the united states and libya. libyan security personnel fought back against the attackers alongside americans. libyans helped some of our diplomats find safety and they carried ambassador stevens' body to the hospital where we tragically learned that he had died. >> rose: in her remarks, secretary of state hillary clinton paid tribute to the career of ambassador stevens. >> chris stevens fell i

his answer on libya was the closest thing to a moment and a horribly weak moment i think the debate had and as president i think that got inside his head and rattled him which was his plan on making governor romney's personal finances and the connection with his personal finances and his economic positions something that voters would have heard. on the other hand, if the president had two goals tonight, one was to get inside romney's head to be aggressive and talk about what he would do in a second term and i think -- i listened pretty closely, didn't talk anything about what he would do, it is all about taking down governor romney, i think the president won, i think to the extent that winning a debate and the coverage that will get will stabilize things for him, i think it is a great night for him. but i am not sure it does anything but key up the third debate to give both of them another chance to break the tie. >> rose: john heilemann. >> charlie, i think the story coming out of this debate to say you, to say kind of what al hunt started out with i think will be the president battles

: and there was no veto in the case of libya? >> well there wasn't, there were five countries of the 15 in the security council who abstained, including russia and china,. >> rose: by abstain they did not veto. >> they did not veto and that was passed and the authority was given for military action. >> rose: what is your understanding, even though ambassador cher kin has been here of the russian position? .. >> well, again i think he is better to explain it than i can, but i think for russia they feel that the mandate that was given for military intervention in libya was exceeded by the coalition action. now that is completely unjustified, because i and ambassador cher kin were in the negotiations and it was made very clear in the private negotiations in the runup to that resolution on libya that if the resolution was adopted it would mean military action to take out the air defenses of libya, to attack the qaddafi forces that were threatening benghazi and the east of the country. and that was made very clear. so when that happen

last year, france played a key role rein libya. i am please to have laurent fabius back at this table. welcome back. >> it is the same table, although a different venue. looking at libya and looking at syria, when should united nations or member states intervene? >> well, these are different situations. in libya, i think we've been right in intervening because gaddafi was a dictator, and you remember that there was a sort of libyan spring, and nobody was possible because of gaddafi. therefore, a decision was taken to intervene. >> rose: is the principle you don't intervene no matter how atroacials the acts of the government in power, if in fact they have a member of the security council who opposes? or if in fact they have an army which will make it a very bloody affair. >> no. >> rose: are those the rules? >> no. the rule is because of veto if one or two people-- nations -- permanent security members-- we cannot contribute because our principle is to intervene only if we have a legal authorization. and up to now, three times, russ

and you saw this very clearly in libya. there were the extremists who killed chris stevens, an appalling murder of somebody who had actually done his best for the libyan people. but then you then have thousands on the street protesting against his killers and demanding action be taken. so i think the more i look at the world today, i think in a way a more relevant struggle to a lot of countries than what i would call traditional left versus right politics is the open minded versus the closed minded. and the open minded see globalizations as an opportunity. they want an open society, an open economy, a society where you tolerate and respect people, a different faiths and cultures and then the closed minded who really have a view that if you don't accept my view then are you an alien or an enemy. i think that is the battle that is going on and in the end, i think it's important always, and i always say this to people in america to realize-- realize that for all the pictures of extremist that you see in people burning the amer

not every situation requires a military intervention or invasion and indeed as we demonstrated in libya there was the possibility in that unique circumstance of attacking civilians without putting a single american boot on the ground. kosovo was a different circumstance and bosnia was different. these are all different and in this instance it's not a question of international or american or western or arab inaction. i think the fault may lie, frankly, with those who blocked potentially the last best opportunity for a negotiated peaceful settlement and that's what sadly happened on saturday. >> charlie: why do you think the russians took the action they did? >> well, you interviewed my colleague ambassador jurkan and gave you better policy. i think many on the council can answer because we were only engaged last week and many of the concerns russia and china and other members of the council has raised is this going to be construed asók of force. we made it clear that's not what this is about. >> charlie: he made the comparison with the president of the united states and president mubark

the egypts and others, the libyas. what he essentially laid out was called a conditional foreign policy. essentially saying, look, the era where we gave aid to you all and you act as you see fit is over. we will continue to work with you but only so long as you meet us halfway, whether it's the way you treat women, girls and minorities, your foreign policy more broadly against israel and terrorism. i think that's an important statement and one that people in both parties should be able to support. >> rose: and it would include both egypt and saudi arabia? >> that's an interesting question whether it goes to saudi arabia, bahrain. and, again, the devil is in the details and how we're going to do that but clearly i think it was aimed at egypt. >> rose: what about this idea of defense treaties and the idea of nuclear weapons systems? did he speak to that? >> he didn't as much. i mean, what he was trying to do here, charlie, was to sort of align himself with the israeli view that you needed to stop iran, as richard said, b

that's exactly what they said about libya. and i admit that we have grave challenges as far as egypt is concerned. but to think that someone after bashar assad would be bad is lewd cus and, again, i want to point out... i talked with their leadership. they are worried about extremist elements come into this fight. the longer it goes on the more likely it is that extremists come into it. >> rose: do you think libya will turn out bad or good? >> i think it will turn out good. >> rose: because you think somehow those people coming into power are not... >> well, right now the prime minister and deputy prime minister of libya-- it's a temporary position-- they're both former professors at the university of alabama. the former finance minister was oil minister, was a professor at the university of washington. he's no longer that. and they have money. they have big challenges but it's not so much from extremists as it is from the tribal entities that exist in libya and always have that qaddafi kept under his control. but i'm confiden

what worked in libya isn't working in syria. the geography's different, the problem hasn't been tried but no one will dare try it because in libya, you could deal with this remotely by finding the libyan forces out in the desert and bombing them. in syria, this is all taking place inside cities. you can't use remote air power without causing terrific casualties and no one wants to take the risk of getting in the midst of the civil war. so there are some things for which the light footprint strategy works and there are others which is not well suited. >> rose: well but there are people who worry about the syrian policy if the administration and others do nothing, the things they fear most eventually happen. >> that's right. and that's the big concern here. so you know, we've got a strategy right now that is good for keeping terrorists off balance and may be good at slowing down countries seeking unconventional weapons. it does not do a whole lot for changing societies. remember, it was just a few years ago we would sit at this ta

they compare this with libya. they felt they were taken for a ride in libya. >> rose: because the united nations did more than it-- he had felt the authority was given. >> that's correct. they felt that the resolution and its implementation morphed very quickly into regime change. and they don't want to see a repeat of that. both the chinese and russians feel very strongly about this. apart from other reasons they have for the syrian approach and policy. >> do they care what happens to bashar al-assad. >> no, i think they concede, they accept that assad will have to go and may have to-- . >> rose: so what role do they see him playing in this process. >> i think the main concern is that let's say once you have agreed on the political transition, let's for argument sake say that the transition period will be for a year. the difference between the western position and the russian position as i see it is that the west say as sad pus go. the russians say how does he go. the more you demand assad must go, the deeper he

the arab spring expresses a real soul in the arabic nations, starting from tunisia, libya, egypt and now syria. and syria will reach a stability very soon with the will of the syrian people, god willing. >> rose: let me talk about syria then i'll come back to egypt. what's necessary to stop the killing in syria? >> ( translated ): the international community needs to cooperate in order to achieve this goal and in order to achieve a real goal by the people of the free will to support the people of syria in their march towards freedom because the killing and the bloodshed, these are crimes that are being committed right now and the world is watching it and we see this and this is something that keeps us away from sleep. we need cooperation between us. we have a quartet between egypt and iran, saudi arabia and turkey and with the help of the united nations and the countries of the free world i believe that we are getting close to a solution very soon. god willing. >> rose: what would that quartet do? egypt, iran, saudi arabia, turkey. >> ( translated ): well, you're talking about the co

it defend -- depends on what we learn of with happens in libya. but there is not active plotting to strike the united states. but that doesn't mean that they are less dangerous. that just means that the nature of america's response to this has to change. the global war on terrorism is a very different, a series of local wars on terrorism. and our approach has to be very different. it can't simply be sending heavy armour and large numbers of sold evers into places. >> it's curious that when he was listing those countries are al qaeda is active he left out afghanistan. >> yes. >> and pakistan. we've been lead to believe that afghanistan it's all over and a bin ladsen dead and there has been all these drone strikes in pakistan so we don't need to worry about al qaeda in afghanistan any more. we've been doing a two-year investigation into this at 60 minutes and what we found is that that is absolutely not true. last week i was with a taliban commander riding around kabul actually and he said to me he had more al qaeda fighters fighting side-by-side wi

i just mentioned the charges of egyptian, tunis and libya. they worry about it slightly different and there is nothing conclusive. in jordan, in 18 months, we changed a third of the constitution, we introduced two independent elements to the constitution. a new constitution and for the first time, and independent commissions to elections which is going to be vital for the next phase of the political life. and a new political party law, a new election law, a teachers union this is everything demanded be at this muss brim brotherhood and more. i, when i say more i pushed for more, as well as all of the other groups that we have in the country. all of the legislation we did in 18 months, i challenge you to find a country in the world that could have done as much as we have done in 18 months. the difference between jordan and i think those other countries is, we did the hard work first and then we have elections at the end of the year. and i think the litmus test is going to be at the end of the year which is our elections. and my vision for jord

it's primarily-- last year it enforce add no-fly zone in libya and the campaign that overthrew moammar qaddafi. i'm pleased to have the secretary general at this table, welcome. tell me how you have defined the role for nato in the current environment, especially in the middle east. >> the core role is still to protect our citizens against any threat to their security we won the cold war. we protected our citizens against soviet communism, aggression. we won the cold war. the soviet broke down but after the end of the cold war we realized that we are faced we merging security challenges, terrorism, this is the reason why we are in afghanistan. that's why we are now building a nato missile defense system to protect our populations against milz attacks. piracy, this is the reasons why we conduct counterpiracy operation. so across the board we have taken on responsibility for new missions but, again, with the core task to protect our citizens against any threat. >> rose: how much of that is borne by the united states, both in terms of budget and in terms of resources? >> a lot, of course.

but you look at libya today, i mean, we were instrumental in getting rid of that regime. we were instrumental in getting rid of that regime in egypt. i think the much more important question is why do they hate each other so much? why do do so many people try to climb into power there against the other? that's really the question we have to ask them. what my column today was about was how much sort of just hate speech you have in their media directed against shiites, directed against arab christians forget the jews, against sufis. this is not just about us at all. where does that come from? >> rose: has the arab spring lost its momentum? and is in the danger of being hijacked? >> you know, my view was always always this is going to take a long time and we're in-- we're not even at the end of the beginning. this is just going to-- this is a 50-year hole that's been dug in that part of the world. and... >> rose: modernity, women-- >> everything. and so it's quite and a half natural that the islamists were going to have the first crack at this because they were the most orga

what was the case in libya, i don't think i need to recall. we have not been, and of course another cheating was on the arms embargo resolution which was adopted by consensus. we didn't abstain, we voted for it, only to see that you know later the countries like france and cause -- qatar by the way were opening bragging that they were supplying arms to the rebels in violation of the security council resolution. i wanted to make one thing very clear. we were not wedded to mr. qaddafi or to mr. -- he was not educated in the russian federation, he was educated in europe. his friends were in western europe, not in russia. and when people say that you are protecting president assad, this is absolute ignorance of the real situation. >> rose: i believe you're protecting him, and why am i ignorant if -- >> wait charley, tell me in what way i was protecting him. >> rose: in several ways. most people believe that if they did not have russian support and iranian support, he would not last very long. both in terms of arms and in the iranian case, some sug

if you look at libya, for example,, libya is essentially a group of militia forces controlling part of the country. >> rose: and what about egypt? >> egypt an interesting case. there's a growing salafist movement. the head of al qaeda now is egyptian himself. >> rose: al-zawahiri is egyptian. >> al-zawahiri is egyptian. a senior al qaeda official in iran also egyptian. and the brother of al-zawahiri was released not long ago from egyptian prison. so egypt, i would say, a very serious potential concern where al qaeda is definitely trying to get... >> rose: if something happened that would be the most egregious threat to national security? >> that would be a very serious threat. >> rose: okay. when you look at iran, what do we know about iran's involvement with al qaeda? >> the iran/al qaeda relationship has been a very complicated one. after al qaeda lost its sanctuary in afghanistan the bulk of the senior leaders went to pakistan. but a number of them called the management council they were viewed as in case the leadership was decimated in pakistan they would have enough senior leaders

the world has changed since last year, you know, when the arab spring started and the revolution in libya, in tunisia and egypt began to take shape, he was one of the first arab leaders to come out and say arab governments should listen to their people, should cater to their needs and carry out reform, et cetera. and we were encouraged by those statements and in fact our prime minister has a role to play in cultivating some of those ideas with bashar, unfortunately, he realized in a matter of a couple of months that it was not genuine interest in any kind of serious stems for reform, for listening to his own people but just trying to buy time. now,. >> rose: stay in power. >> stay in power but at what cost? now right now look at his country. a year ago syria, you know, was ruled by an authoritarian he rule but at least there was no killing, that's when we had a good relationship with syria. >> rose: so why should he negotiate? any other road leads him to lose power. >> he will lose power in one way or another. >> rose: because he is overthrown or lose power because of what? >> well, becau

now the united states and the international community acted for example in libya. and it was decisive with respect to that, to that country. >> charlie: people there have said to me if that had not happened that would have been a bad consequence. >> yes. when the president sat in the situation room and waspresented with the evidence that of which qaddafi's statements were and intentionsere with respect to his opponents that are gather in a city of 700,000people they coast, he determined if we could do somethi about this we should and we did. and qaddafi is no longer. >> charlie: we are influenced by what the president of france had done? >> well no, i think this is a decision made bth president. >> charlie: we might have been prepared to go in regardless what transhad done. >> o. this is a very important point. what the the president decided is this. is that we were willing to back a military action if we could get a coalition together because we weren't going to do it unilaterally. we wouldn't put u.s. boots on the ground in another muslim country. we wanted to ge

i am worried about his situation in which there is no central government left in libya. and in which you have large oil-- and which the west will be put into the position of nation building in society that hast been a nation. again, it's one of those things that once the process started, it had to be brought to a conclusion. and once we have made the initial decision to go as far as wead, i think it was correct to encourage going the rest of the way. but i do not believe we will celebrate the outcome of the libyan revolution five years from now. >> rose: what will we do five years from now? look back and say -- >> a lot depends on what happened in egypt and in syria, and in the whole evolution of the arab spring. but so to some extent it can be, it can be brought under some control. but i am very uneasy about a cotry in which militant groups occupying parts of each country which it rt of is a sum ali condition, and which could become a center of-- let me make clear where we are now, we have no chce except to proceed. and where we started, i can understand the concern to

why did you miss that opportunity with libya. i think one reason he misthe the opportunity, frankly, he wasn't taking the controversy over libya, whether the administration made mistakes in not responding to requests for security, why they erred and initially incorrectly describing the nature of that attack. he's not making a larger argument about it, not saying to voters, here's why this matters. here's what this is illustrative of. he got tangled up in the detaifltz specific incident and lost the audience and gave president obama an opportunity to kind of sort of puff his chest out and sound indignant and say i'm offended that you're questioning my patriotism. obama, i'll say again, charlie, obama remembered what this was about. it's a leadership stage. obama-- romney seemed to think that he was arguing in the classic debate context, in which we're going to get scored by whoever makes the most points with the most logical connection between them. >> rose: what was the audience reaction, whether in the hall or outside, to the pu

>> he still has capacity, the arab league is ineffectual there is no libya option on syria right now s so he could hold on for a while it is going to be bloody and horrific. >> rose: there is no turning back on it. >> there is no turning back i think that is right and i think in bahrain the iranians are the losers supporting the shy a majority there, maliki has been sort of the -- the sunnis are looking to move away from him so if you are iran, geo politically you are on the back foot, also more sanctions are going against iran and it is startinto bite, and there is new energy sanctions from europe because the countries that are getting oil from iran have all changed their governments recently, greece, spain, and italy all have governments now that are much less well disposed toward working with tehran and in the united states we have tougher sanctions coming though there are big holes you can drive through on the central bank. all that is making t iranians tweak quite a bit, they are not going to shut down the straits of hormuz, you know that it is economic sue sid but going this is

getting out of afghanistan, in 2014, iranian sanctions, syria defending israel, even to some extent on libya. so i don't think this debate changes the dynamics a great deal, people aren't going to vote on foreign policy, but i think if governor romney hoped to build a little momentum which he appears to have had with tonight and in florida he certainly did not achieve that and i think we are ready for a turbulent 14 days but tonight goes to obama. >> rose: mark halperin. >> i think the president won on points. he demonstrated and brandished his experience as commander in chief, he was aggressive, all night he had more quips and one liners as a manner of theatrics will be played on tv, i disagree with al in the following way, governor romney executed a strategy, the idea his advisors came up with when he agreed with the president he should agree, if this debate affects the race and i don't think it will, but if it does, i think governor romney completed the trifecta in all three deablghts as a matter of similar bioticks he stood to the president toe photo and did fine .. he he looked to him t

of the pre and this great optimism about democracy, the same celebrations we are seeing in egypt or libya, now you are aware of countries around the world of what could happen with these democracies. >> rose: thank you all. pleasure. thank you, charlie, great to see you. thank you. see you again. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> rose: funding for charlie see has ben provided by the coca-cola company, supporting this program since 2002. and american express. additional funding provided by these funders. and by bloomberg, a providermena ultimemnda news and information services worldwide. beemore,bs