President obama addressed the nation. He said he would not hesitate to order strikes against isis targets in syria. Heres a look at some of what the president said. Tonight, with a new Iraqi Government in place and with consultations, i can announce that america will lead a Broad Coalition to roll back the terrorist threat. Our objective is clear. We will degrade and ultimately destroy isil with a comprehensive and contained strategy. We stand with people who fight for their own freedom and we rally other nations on behalf of our Common Security and common humanity. The president added he had the authority to act but he welcomes congress support. Joining me now is Jeffrey Goldberg from the atlantic magazine and a Bloomberg View columnist. You know these issues well and you have interviewed the president a number of times. Tell me or take away from this and put where he is now an context of where hes been. Where hes been for the past six years, wanting to get out of the middle east, he sees the middle east as a place where hope goes to die, a morass for the United States. He wants to think about other issues including and especially asia. Yesterday it represents the kind of tragic moment, tragic realization for him that no matter how hard he tries to get the United States out of the swamp, there is no possible way thats going to happen during his tenure. And obviously, in part because he has wanted to get out for understandable reasons, by the way. He wanted to get out of micromanaging the middle east. He probably has not paid sufficient attention to the years leading up to where we are right now. There may have been some sort of difference. Right now hes in this mode of, you know what . I have to stop the islamist state and isis. Unfortunately, this is where we are. One of the things the president has realized as there is no substitute for American Leadership in the middle east. The israelis and the egyptians were looking at it without american participation. The Arab Emirates decided to launch attacks on libya without american involvement. That scared a lot of people in washington that the leaders are making their own decisions now because theyre going to go freelance, go rogue to make it even more dangerous. There is a realization even on people who do not want to realize that there is no substitute for american organization, american management. He can also be convinced by others that if he does not do something, and he therefore could emerge as a threat to the United States. Hes very careful about not overselling the threat. Hes not talking about imminent or concrete plans. There are two things here. He has said they have been too extreme and brutal, which is something. The core jihadist ideology is really antiamerican as we can tell from this tragic and horrible beheadings. Eventually, guys like these decide that america is a great target. Hes looking at history and making the assumption that if they are not a threat at the moment they will be later especially because they have so many foreign fighters with passports including those that participate in the u. S. Visa waiver program. You have to stop it in its tracks. The second and more urgent issue for the president , i think, is the danger that isis poses to our close allies in the region. The kurds with an autonomous region that are very proamerican. Jordan, in particular, a linchpin the sunni moderate state. If it were infiltrated or overrun it would lead to a catastrophe almost unimaginable. The israelis would come in and try to rescue the jordanians. All options are on the table. What are the arab states going to contribute . There is a report that says a number will do what they can. What can they do . There is the profound frustration that the very well armed allies can step up and do the job of combating isis and protecting innocent arabs. They are not going there. Why not . You are going to have to ask them. They are scared. They have the capabilities. They will not risk their own princes for this region. They would prefer, as everyone would, the u. S. To go kill their enemies for them just to standoff from their enemies. That wasnt us. That was the United States. Theres another issue and that there is a lot of support, subterranean support, but serious support for groups like isis. They do not want to alienate the radical jihadists in these countries. Most of them live within the framework of the systems created by the monarchs. They do not want to alienate by going and attacking that some of them think our righteous muslims. A whole host of reasons why that will not happen. That said, there will be contributions of money, materiel, training components. There might even be some training for socalled moderate forces to train isis. Let me be clear. Some countries play a negative effect like qatar playing both sides. Theyre trying to step up in a modest fashion, like saudi arabia, but the uae has come out pretty strongly and openly saying there has to be a Worldwide Coalition against radical islam. We have to participate in this openly. They are a small country. The u. S. Has the capability, u. S. Has the command and control, the special forces knowledge, all the things you need in order to wage what is already a very difficult fight against isis. The question becomes much more complex when you move to syria. It is already devilishly complex. We were invited by the Iraqi Government. Exactly one year ago, president obama on television talking about the need to fight Bashar Alassad. One year later, talking about the need to fight Bashar Alassads enemies. Its enormously complicated. Were not going to make this to crazy complicated but were trying to do another sensitive and important thing in the coming months, negotiating a new deal with the iranians, Bashar Alassad allies and enemies of isis. Russia could make that a much more difficult process if it wanted to. And so this becomes a kind of 3d chessboard and its not at all clear that we have the sophistication or wherewithal to play this game out over a number of years. Is the Free Syrian Army up to this . This is one of the ironies of the moment. President obama has been saying in an interview with me and others, hes talked about the moderate Syrian Opposition as a bunch of farmers, carpenters and a matter how wellmeaning they are, arguing that they could defeat assad combined with has below, the Iranian Revolutionary guard corps which is helping assad, it was a fantasy. This was one of the key disagreements hes had with hillary clinton. Was there some hope of supporting these guys . He has given short shrift to this argument and now we are in a situation where the moderate Syrian Rebels we spent a lot of time ignoring, marginalizing, not giving sufficient help too, now they are one of the linchpins in this grand antiisis coalition. We are starting in the hole because we could have helped build them up a couple years ago and we did not do it. If you look at the coalition lined up against isis, its not very impressive. The iraq he army is dysfunctional. They have only had intermittent success. You have the Free Syrian Army and obama probably is not wrong in saying it is not as sophisticated as hezbollah. You want to defeat isis on the ground without having to resort to using iranianallied forces. They have been the most effective fighting forces in iraq, have they not . Absolutely. They are all in. Hezbollah is a hardened group of fighters and they are in a very deep conflict with them. This is why if you are president obama you are sitting there getting these briefings and you say really . I have to fight these terrible people and use other groups of terrible people to fight these terrible people . If i succeed against this group of terrible people than another group of terrible people will come in and take advantage . Of course if you are an american president you are wary of this. Thats the fundamental issue. Im not sure you can rollback in some significant way isis without becoming, in effect, irans air force. It depends by what you mean partner. Will there be open activities with them . For shared military objectives. Its completely plausible to imagine intelligence information being surreptitiously slipped in one direction or the other. It is plausible there will be communications to make sure that when u. S. Planes are flying over that iran understands they are u. S. Planes. On that level remember its very important for the u. S. Not to ally openly or too deeply with iran. Its crucial that the u. S. Has sunni moderates across the muslim world on the u. S. Side. If were seen as making an alliance in any kind of way with iran, we lose all of the sunnis who fear iran more than they fear almost anything. Tell me about the mood of the president. What would you say is the mindset . The president obama of 2014 is not the president obama of 2009. Think about the cairo speech at the very outset of his presidency. He was elected in part to reset and improve our relations with the muslim world. He gave a very optimistic speech. Implicit in that speech he gave, we want good but lowmaintenance relations with the muslim world and the arabs because ive got a lot of stuff to do at home. He was hopeful that his biography, his demeanor, his ideas would kind of combined to smooth wings out of it. This is before the arab spring revolutions, before isis, before the syrian uprisings. Before a lot of things. Now he looks at the middle east and says it is an unmitigated disaster. He sees barbarian organizations like isis chopping peoples heads off. He sees leaders that are feckless, even among canada allies of the United States. He sees a shiasunni split in half a dozen or more countries that he knows he cannot fix. No american president would delude themselves into thinking they could repair the breach between the shia and sunni. The president of 2009 wanted to make things better is now in a just kind of damage controlmode where he wants to try to keep angst from slipping further into chaos. A chaos that will over spill in the middle east and eventually come to hurt us. Where is turkey and all of this . Interesting question. One of the main ways these young disaffected muslim men looking for excitement with isis, one way they are getting into syria and iraq is a that open turkish border. Turkey is a nato state and you would think they would try a little bit harder to keep these young men from going to isis and becoming radicalized and returning to fellow nato countries. Turkey is in a real spot. Theres a lot of talk about how turkish leadership, islam must sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and therefore opposed to assad and therefore sympathetic to isis. Whats really going on and really keeping turkey more on the sidelines than the u. S. Would like to see is a very powerful military. Isis has about 48 turkish hostages. I think isis has made it clear that it is capable of limitless cruelty and sadism. Turkey is extremely worried about these hostages and understands that if it crosses to borrow a phrase, certain red lines that there are consequences to that. Turkey is another frustrating from the american perspective, player and all of this. What is victory here . I will tell you what failure is. January 20, 2017, when president obama gets in the helicopter to say goodbye to the american people, if there are significant al qaedastyle safe havens across the muslim world and a large isis safe haven straddling the borders, that will be a profound National Security failure. This guy was elected to refocus americas fight against terrorism to get out of the iraq diversion and refocus on al qaeda and jihadism. That would be a serious failure. The immediate task is to stop the forward momentum. Pushing them out of iraq will be far easier than ridding syria. They will try to degrade them some from the air. A slightly longerterm Prospect Building up the army, Free Syrian Army, kurds that can become an actual potent fighting force. The number one goal is to stop deterioration. It does not sound dramatic in the president will obviously go out and promise degrading and destroying, but the number one goal is to quarantine the problem where it is and not what it spread. Jeffrey goldberg from the atlantic and from Bloomberg View, thank you so much. We will be back in a moment, stay with us. This is where i leave you is a new movie, a romantic comedy adaptation of the bestselling novel of four grown siblings who reunite after their father dies. It features jason bateman, tina fey, jane fonda. Three months ago i had a great job, a nice apartment, and i was in love with my life. One year. Our first time. I imagine right now youre well into the excessive facial hair phase of depression. Its not a good time. Dads dead. What . Your father had one final request and we are going to honor it. For the next seven days, youre all grounded. No, no, no we are just sitting in awkward silence. Close that road . Its just breasts. Once you suckled them. Whats it been . 7, 8, 9 years . She slept with my boss. That will do it. You need to put a baby in that woman like yesterday. My room is next to yours. Who are you to come in here . Thats the princess cut. You guys are idiots, but you are my idiots. Clearly she lost more than a husband. Anything can happen. Anything can happen all the time. Life is unpredictable and irrational and complicated. I want a complicated life. I left the baby monitor on upstairs. Turn it up. Turn it up. Shove a baby up there. The circle of life, everybody. Joining me now is the screenwriter, the director, and two of the actors, tina fey and jason bateman. Did you think this was a film . I thought the exact opposite. It was very episodic. I did not actually expected to be a film. I was writing about jasons character and someone who loses everything. He loses his marriage his job, everything. I just could not get my arms around the novel until i brought in the Nuclear Family and in a needed an excuse for them to Stay Together for more than a few hours. So i converted them to judaism. Thats how novels are born. I read that it is perfectly cast. Tell me about casting. I found the novel and his screenplay so vivid in all of its characters that it felt like i needed an allstar for every single role. There is no dismissible character. Everyone is totally realized and therefore every actor. I picked them one by one based on who could bring them fully to life. Its great to see jane. And she is here in a seriocomedic role. She enjoyed this new breed of comedy. We were also open to improvisation. After the first week or two she really got into that as well. You read the script and said it was for you . I read the script and met with shawn. I really like the character of wendy. It was not a story i felt like i had seen before. Whats her story . She met the love of her life across the street, her high school sweetheart. Something bad happened when they were young and in love that made him not quite a guy that she could really marry. He has a brain injury. Hes really handsome and sweet but he cannot really function and at some point in her past she had to make the pragmatic decision to move on. Shes coming home and she married a much more outwardly successful guy, a handsome businessman but shes constantly haunted by the fact that she maybe did not do the right thing or with the man she truly loved was taken from her. And your character . The previously mentioned the storyline. [laughter] my guy walks in on his wife sleeping with his boss. He gets a phone call that his dad is dead. You got that in the trailer. And then im out. Most of my scenes are right there. I narrate the final crawl. Thats about it. I play a character not too dissimilar from that. I like to play a guy in the middle to trying to kind of figure it all out, make better decisions than he has while navigating the eccentricities of these around him mainly in the form of family. There are certainly those eccentricities present. What formed the development of the characters for you . Finding out which characters would push the other characters and it started with jasons character, somebody who is realizing halfway through his life that the script he has followed has not served him well and having to question the decisions hes made and bringing him back to see the damage caused by his family that may have sent him in that direction and having to come back to terms with that and make a new plan at the age of 40 something. What made you want to collaborate on this together . When i read the book five years ago i fell in love with it instantly. I could not get my hands on the movie version. It was looking like it might get made with other actors and directors so to console myself i was also doing bigger action comedies at that time. I am now officially a fan. Lets do something together. He adapted Steve Martins book for me. Then we worked on another screenplay, a fatherson redemption story. By the time it came back around, we had the friendship and the shorthand. I hope this is the first of many collaborations that we can bring to the screen. Jason as an actor this is coming to the right side. Dont worry. He is so able to be fluently funny and heartbreaking often in the same moment. That is there in the movie at large. Tell me between the relationship in the characters you both play. You break the news to him that dad is dead. I play his older sister who is seemingly very invasive and opinionated. In the movie im the only one in his immediate family that knows that his wife has left him. Under the circumstances. I torment him with that. [laughter] what does that mean . I cannot keep a secret. Its killing me. Guess what happened . You must not have been very good because she was hanging out with his boss. Roll tape. Will you just take the call . This is crazy enough without you keeping your divorce secret. Who does that . You cannot tell your family then who . I would never tell anyone. This is already like a new record for me keeping my mouth shut. Youre grieving. Tell them. I will pinch you. Where is that beautiful wife of yours . Gone. Shes gone. Its over. Maybe its not that complicated. I walk