and it seemed like republicans strategy.d a they wanted to paint her as owning that libya policy, in responding quick fromh to the warning ambassador stevens at the time. but they seemed to -- they kept down these rabbit holes, getting stuck on these very gotcha moments. why do you think that trey gowdy and the committee republican ended up in that unfortunate -- unfortunate for them, looking like they were partisan attack? >> obviously the setup to this hearing wasn't very helpful topf have kevin mccarthy come out a few weeks before this hearing and say this was or -- suggested to undermine her poll numbers. but i agree with you. it did seem like they were 11-hourin this endurance test, to provoke some kind of an outburst from her. it to the left democrats. that's one of the other rules. she left it to the democrats to that political fight. >> it seemed inevitable that there would be a food fight, shouting match between the two sides. that did erupt. i think it was over the question blumenthal's testimony should be released. but that was sort of unsurprising to me. at did pretty muc

isis is now expanding in libya and elsewhere in africa. all of this presents a dilemma for the obama administration which insists the week was a tactical setback. >> we have seen a lot of success. but we've also seen significant periods of setback. that's part of what a military conflict is going to be won. gwen: the president's critics pounced. >> this takeover ramadi serves the latest example of a president whose policies are rudderless in the middle east even as that region is riled with grotesque violence. gwen: how tough a spot is this? yochi: the reality is that by any measure isis is spreading in iraq, syria libya. u.s. integenerals believes that there have been isis commanders physically sent from syria to libya to take command of an isis branch there. and the list goes on and on and on. the president if he were to admit any of that, the question uld be why aren't you doing more? why aren't you willing to go back there and they're continuing to expand? this week his answer was no i done think he's losing and he went through a long

hesitance to say this was a strike against libya. the u.s. saying we need a political solution to stabilize libya, not outside states intervening and the egyptians are saying we cannot just let it go. it's fascinating, the push-pull. on one hand we want a diplomatic solution and levers of democracy and at the same time, iraq and syria, using military means. gwen: is there a diplomatic solution for how the global community should be handling this? >> there's a political concept that the president articulated. he essentially said one of the key long-term solutions here is democracy, political freedom that when you have repression, radicalism festers. but -- and it's interesting because there's a school of thought that says actually what you need in the middle east is strong men and we may not like them but people are nostalgic for gaddafi and saddam. but the president really reinforced that message that that's not the answer because that can stabilize in the short term but in the long term creates more resentment and radicalism. gwen: thank you

but if you think back to the livey operation that -- libya operation. that did not begin with the goal of toppling toppling ghadafi. it was similar to the situation the president described last night. we think of benghazi now asa none must with the compound. the reason the president authorized intervention was to save innocents from the slaughter and that is why we were doing it. and then when happened? it evolved. we had a stake in the game. it turned into a long-running air campaign. there was a little bit of mission creep. it is not an air campaign now but we have a recent precedent for a humanitarian intervention turn nothing a longer running air campaign. can that achieve its goals? a cliche you hear a lot. you need a political solution in iraq. the warring parties have to make some sort of compromise. gwen: isn't what happened in libya and what is happening in iraq the same reason that barack obama stayed out of syria? >> yes. and the challenge with a limited air campaign or whenever you want to call it if the message to isis which is emboldened a

libya an interest? at what point does it become an immediate concern for the united states? we talk about ukraine but frankly it's a bigger concern for europe than the united states. iraq, at what point does that become a threat to the u.s. national security? if these countries aren't posing an immediate threat? gwen: except that you just cannot look away especially as the leader of the free world. >> we're at that stage where you cannot -- cannot look away. and we're nals a period when the american public is still allergic to direct intervention. in all of this list of conflicts you talked about has anyone raised in a serious way military intervention? the united states isn't even sending weaponry to the government of ukraine at this point. wen: talking about nonlethal aid. >> so a that point it's an old and sort of grim principle in diplomacy which is called ripeness that sometimes these things, the two sides in a con flict, gaza as an example has to exhaust each other and get to the point where neither side still thinks it has no ground to gain and i'm afraid we're in tha

intelligence agency's saying we expect more in libya.attacks conditions warrant safe haven in libya. these are detailed reports that they weren't specific saying it's going to happen on september 11, but they thoseerious reports and are the warnings that the state heed.ment did not gwen: let's take this back a minute. this is not first such report not the first investigation, probably won't be the last but we keep getting mixed signals on what the cause of this was and this report doesn't really clear that up. >> no. it doesn't. although, you know, this was a bipartisan report which means you had -- what does that mean? >> held out the promise. key points in two which democrats and republicans actually were able to find agreement. was al qaedahere involvement in the sense of toividuals who had ties al qaeda affiliates were definitely involved and the other one which is also did agree thatey there was no order from the white house or anywhere else to nond down, there was opportunity for the military to come in and rescue. and those, of course, were controversial points in the initial

libya surprised everybody, saying ok, we renounce all this and everything is fine and we're a member of the world community again. is that the ultimate pie in the sky goal? >> i think the ultimate goal is to get them to give up their chemical weapons. that is what we want. anyone who signed on to the chemical weapons convention has never used their chemical weapons again, although i do think they found that qaddafi had a little secret stash of chemical weapons some place. and frankly it's quite easy, i believe, to rezute -- reconstitute your weapons. it's not like building a nuclear bottom i find that so eastern couraging though. he is not going to launch any chemical attacks while the u.n. and others are trying to get him to put all -- >> that's the other argument. the white house and administration are making the argument that a long, protracted, annoying, difficult negotiation is actually good because during that at least there is a deterrent effect. >> at the same time, that guarantees that assad stays in power and -- >> delay is its own thing. assad is an interesting character i

it was never part of the said no bootshey on the ground in libya but it couldn't sendey opravatives in libya so a trainingwill serve role and working with vetted groups, again, to try to change balance not only against the government but also change the rebellion.hin the they're concerned about the rise of islamist groups so they want to support, with the c.i.a. the lead, the groups that are considered more secular. first term there were deep divisions on the president's national security team over this issue that we now have some new people in new positions. of how ther sense obama team -- are they all unified on this at this point? there divisions? >> there are still pretty deep divisions and the white house is pretty much remained consistent. they're reluctant to do this. they're skeptical of the it and they're concerned about another -- getting deep into another war in the middle east. the state department has been the most hawkish. the're concerned about collapse of syria, they're concerned about what it could do throughout the middle east. are elements through the the state depar

i received a call from the prime minister of libya. it was the saddest phone call i've ever had in my life. he told me that ambassador stevens had passed away. michele: emotional testimony about the attacks in libya that killed four americans. fact finding, finger pointing or both? >> the administration, however, has not been cooperative. >> what we've seen over the past two weeks is a full-scale media campaign of unfounded accusations to smear public officials. >> getting to the bottom of the benghazi attacks. >> we all know that the current path in syria is simply unsustainable. michele: shuttle diplomacy for the secretary of state on the continuing crisis in syria. and how israel has become a central figure. on capitol hill, the senate tackles immigration reform. >> there are many who will want to kill this bill. i would ask my colleagues, if you don't agree with everything, no one does, be constructive. we are open to changes. >> i just want to say this. the house is going to work its will on immigration reform. michele: hurnddlses

there was a bigger picture and a bigger december lesson that we can draw, which is the fighting in libya that produced the attack on the american consulate is part of the very long aftermath of what we used to call the arab spring. john kerry said we shouldn't call it that. it's going to take longer than one spring. and the people who did it were not members of the old al-qaeda. they were an off-shoot. they were inspired by al-qaeda. osama isn't there anymore. and that it's -- and the old al-qaeda probably doesn't have the capability to do 9/11 anymore but the problem of extremism is still out there and we have a very long way to go. >> i was going to ask about one topic you didn't touch on -- iran. looking back on what the president has had. have you seen any change on that approach? has he gone from containment of let them have the bomb but we'll manage it to a more con frontational issue? >> we're told that, in fact, over time, the president went through a long period of laying all of the pieces on this thing and they studied and studied. there were two schools of thought. could you c

here is what ambassador rice said on several sunday morning tv shows about benghazi, the attack in libya that ended up costing the lives of four americans. but by the time that whole thing played out, it was pretty clear that she was reading talking points that were put together by the intelligence community. she had very little, if nothing to do with embassy security itself. she happened to be on those shows themselves because secretary clinton had just come back from a trip and said she was too tired to go on them. there was more under way here though. part of it was a little bit of her style, which was very confrontational one and that probably didn't serve her all that well when she went up to capitol hill a few weeks ago and tried to talk this out between senator john mccain, lindsey graham, others who had opposed her. little bit of it was the white house i think after president obama came out very strongly in her support. she was afterall one of the first people to sign on to his foreign policy team when he was a pretyim probable candidate. after that, the white house did not come

>> if chemical weapons are used, i think it looks a lot like the air strikes in libya. you have to destroy some of those major stockpiles of chemical weapons. if they start to lose control and there are fores that hezbollah might get ahold of them, you might see some special forces on the ground. the idea of chemical weapons, especially for close allies like israel getting into the hands of hezbollah is really frightening to them and us. short of military action, we're going to recognize the opposition next week, hillary clinton is we are sending patriot missiles, batteries for turkey for the border there. there's a lot going on behind the scenes just short of intervening. there was talk about armying the rebels. they've -- arming the rebels. they've overrun so many bases apparently they have enough weapons now to sort of turn the timed. >> isn't this the same thing we had in libya? you go in on the side of the rebels, but you don't know their own power structure. >> right, and we've held them in arm's way because we didn't feel comfortable. we didn't have enough confid

mission in benghazi, in libya, that resulted to the death of four americans including the u.s. ambassador. >> bottom line -- i'm more disturbed now than i was before that the 16 september explanation about how four americans died in benghazi, libya, by ambassador rice, i think does not do justice to the reality at the time, and in hindsight clearly was completely wrong. but here's the key -- in real time it was a statement disconnected from reality. gwen: back to our original question, gloria, which we asked about the fiscal cliff, which is, how much of this is about policy, how much of it is about politics? >> again, i'd have to give you the same answer. i think it's about policy partly, clearly on the part of lindsay graham and john mccain. but a lot of it is about politics. they didn't get the chance that i think that a lot of them wanted to during the campaign, because mitt romney actually did not lead the charge on benghazi. john mccain led the charge on benghazi. and they have a sense -- there's nothing you can do to a senator to keep them out of the loop. and there is a

on the libya, benghazi dispute, peter, we saw them fighting about nuance, about active terror, whether the president says it was an act of terror, or terrorism. yet there was another argument to be made about whether the u.s. had done all it could to protect the citizens on the ground there. that's not the argument we saw. >> it wasn't. you're right. the voter who asked the question, and this was a town hall-style debate, asked why -- who made the decision not to provide more security when it was requested and why and the president didn't answer. he did say, i take ultimate responsibility. what happened there was my responsibility. but he didn't really answer that question. instead it became as you say a semantic debate. a terrorist act. it kind of got lost i think. governor romney's larger point is that the administration didn't really own up to what really happened in benghazi until a number of days and weeks had passed and attributed it too much to this idea of a pro test which now seems not to have happened over this antiislam video. and president obama was able to sort of like der

look at the attacks in libya and benghazi. this story line is continuing. gwen: in part because the explanation is -- >> the white house has been all over the map on this. for several days the white house from the podium, jay carney and administration officials across the board were insistent that the attacks in libya were caused by this video that was on the internet. they finally acknowledged that it actually was an act of terrorism. if congress was in session right now, i think this would be a real potential problem for this administration and the president because there would be hearings and a concerted effort to find out what happened in benghazi. as of now, i'm not sure that that will sort of turn the election probably gause governor romney has been ham-handed how he has reacted to this. but that is one of the wild cards here in this race that the obama administration and the president cannot control. gwen: except that, the upside, he's the guy with the job and hard to unseat an incumbent and the downside, he's the guy with the job? >> you saw romney

the people of egypt, libya, yemen, and tunisia did not trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob. tyran gwen: but the protestsave spread as thisoop gmae shows. throughout the middle east and beyond. you caca look and see -- it's paki, in london, it's everywhere all over the region and beyond. what happened in benghazi was tragic, but is this something that had been building for some time, david? or was this just the spark? >> gwen, i think it was the flip side of these revolutions that we all watched with sauch maysment and such enthusiasm in some cases in january and february of last year. you know, at the time of those uprising, president obama said what was remarkable about the arab spring was that it wasn't about us, it was about them. it was about throwing avenue old dictators. well, whenever you traveled through the region there wasals -- always -- was always still a little bit of an undercurrent of about us, whether we were supporting democracy or imposing our values. this week it really became about us because these awful videos that you've seen were really what

. >> likely so on egypt this week and libya. remember, libya is a sore point for the russians. >> peter, you mentioned russians have been helpful in getting supplies into afghanistan. that's all the more important now because pakistan is now allowing supplies to come in. is that -- does that explain this kind of weird disdense between the pentagon and state department this week in talking about whether russia was supplying helicopters or not? gwen: weird dissidents is a kind way of putting it. >> very kind. secretary clinton saying putin supplying attack helicopters to assad sounds tough, raises the pressure of the pentagon. well, yeah, there are three helicopters that have been sent back to russia for refurbishment and russia returned them under contract. gwen: why? >> she's trying to raise the pressure on them and there's a weird disdinse here and there's irony the biggest success of the reset is also the biggest problem. now we need them. we need russian air corps we put in place to supply our war against the tall began and a

the big difference is in libya, colonel gaddafi had no friends. the rest of the world felt it could intervene. the french and british wanted to come in syria, harder to do that but let's watch this picture six months from now. after all else has failed, this may look an awful lot like libya and the administration having gotten a little bit pregnant having said we want al-assad to step down, they may have to make that choice. gwen: thank you, everyone. that's it for here for now but the conversation continues online and the "washington week" webcast extra where we'll try to make sense of president obama's buffett rule. before we go we want to send our condolences to fox news sunday's chris wallace on the loss of his father mike, a man who truly changed journalism. see you next week on "washington week." good night. >> funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> one line helps communities turn plans into reality. helps shippers forge a path to prosperity. helps workers get back to work. one line is an engine for the economy and the future. no