The right hat can Party Anywhere she wants. Thanks for watching state of the union. Im Candy Crowley in washington. Head to cnn. Com sotu for extras and analysis. If you missed any part of todays show find us on itunes, just search state of the union. Fareed zakaria gps is next. This is gps the Global Public square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. Im fareed zakaria. We v a series of feisty debates on the hot topics of the day. We start with president obamas nomination of senator chuck hagel to be the next secretary of defense. We have a clash you will want to watch. Then the relationship between the United States and russia keeps getting worse, whose fault is it . Moscow or washington . A debate. Also, the next fight in washington will be over the debt ceiling. Can president obama end this craziness and bypass congress altogether . Well talk about the out of the Box Solutions and whether they would work. And, finally, this is the signature of the man who might be the next treasury secretary. Well look back through history to see if theres any loopy president. Speaking of secretaries of the treasury three former holders of the office and many other statesmen and women offering advice to the president on a new gps special tonight memo to the president , road map for a second term. Tonight at 8 00 p. M. And 11 00 p. M. Eastern and pacific. First, heres my take. Chuck hagels nomination as americas next secretary of defense has drawn fire from people who say hes outside of the main stream. In fact, hes a pretty straight forward, traditional republican on most issues with a reluctance to go to war, born of knowledge and experience. Where hagel does appear out of the mainstream in washingtons world of group think is on iran. Which i would argue is a good thing because washington desperately needs fresh thinking on the topic. In 2013, president obama will face a crisis with regard to iran. He has categorically ruled out containing an iran with nuclear weapons. So, either iran will capitulate completely to american demands or the United States will go to war with that country. Since the first option is extremely unlikely and the second extremely unattractive, the Obama Administration needs to see if there is a path through which it can pressure iran to make a deal. In a thoughtful essay in the Current Issue of Foreign Affairs the columbia scholar jurvis points out that this kind of coercive diplomacy, at least from washington, has rarely worked. He points out in panama, 1989, iraq, 1990, serbia, 1998, afghanistan, 2001 and iraq, 2003, washington tried sanctions pressure and the threat of force to get leaders to change course, it didnt work. And washington had to make good on its threat to go to war. With north korea, coercive diplomacy also failed, but in this case, washington decided against military action choosing, instead, to contain the regime. Making coercive diplomacy requires a mix of threats and promises. With regard to iran, the administration has made the threats plenty of times. With clarity and credibility. But while the sticks have been handled shrewdly, the carrots have not. The United States is unable to define for itself or for the world what would be an acceptable deal and, most importantly, what it is willing to do if ta ron agrees to such a deal . Would sanctions be lifted . Which ones . Would the u. S. Stop its efforts to overthrow the regime . Would it be willing to discuss normalization of relations with iran . There have been many obstacles in the path of a deal from the iranian side. But a former state Department Official writing in the cairo review of Global Affairs points out that tehran has recently signaled its willingness to compromise. He notes that numerous western, chinese and russian officials have acknowledged that the iranians focus their bottom line on uranium enrichment at 3. 5 level and sanctions relief. Irans enrichment of uranium to the 20 lev, corresponding stockpile and underground Nuclear Facility are all fair game for compromise, but for the right price. So, lets try to find a price that makes a deal attractive to the iranians and to us. There are also real obstacles to a negotiated deal in washington and that is where chuck hagels voice could make a difference. We need to make an offer that tehran can accept and that we feel comfortable with. Otherwise, 2013 will be the year that we accepted a nuclear iran or we went to war. For more on this, you can read my column in this weeks time magazine. Lets get started. When president obama chose the conservative republican for the post of defense secretary, you might not have expected opposition from the right, but you would have been wrong. While many conservatives support hagels nomination, there is spirited opposition from the right. Perhaps the first public opposition to chuck hagel was a column in wall street journal by its Foreign Affairs columnist Bret Stephens. He leveled a charge against the former senator, one of the first full throated defenses of hagel came in the daily beast from the editor of that websites blog and the author of the crisis of zionism. Joining me now Bret Stephens and peter beinart. Brett, lets start with you, you essentially accused chuck hagel of being an antisemite. I said there was an odor of prejudice. What evidence do you have thats is the case . He had this famous statement that im sure you heard several times by now about the jewish lobby intimidating a lot of people. A lot of that discussion about that quote had to do with this line, the jewish lobby. As opposed to say the proisrael lobby which is a very diverse collection of organizations. Some of them with very different motives. What got me really wasnt so much the adjective, although i found the adjective odd, it was the verb, intimidates. Chuck hagel for 12 years was a senator from the state of nebraska. I looked it up. There are about 6,100 jews in the state of nebraska. I can imagine many lobbies that might have intimidated hagel when he was in the senate. The ethanol lobby, for example, the farm lobby, various other kinds of lobbies. The nra, the prolife lobby and so on. Its hard to see how he levels a charge that this lobby intimidates people. Now, are there proisrael groups that are lobbying on behalf of israel . Absolutely. Are there dozens, if not hundreds of lobbies in Washington Operating in the same way all the time. So, this peculiar charge that this particular jewish lobby intimidates senators was something i found very disturbing and, obviously, not alone in this view. But you have writing in the times essentially about your column. It is bullying and name calling to denounce people as antisemitic because they wont embrace the policies of a far right Israeli Government that regularly shoots itself in the foot. In a world in which antisemitism actually does persist this is devaluing the term so that it becomes simply a glib right wing insult. To be proisrael is to be this far right, netanyahu and people even further to his right. Thats simply just not true. That is simply a character. By the way, absolutely. The term antisemitic unfair. But that does not mean that antisemitism doesnt exist and that doesnt mean that statements that kind of approach a kind of antisemitism arent out there either. I didnt call him an antisemite. I said there was an odor of prejudice. This is something he has to address. Many other reasons, by the way, i oppose hagels nomination. But that is wait a second. The column is titled chuck hagels jewish problem. And you, you level this charge. As far as i know, you didnt call hagel to ask him. You didnt call any jew in nebraska and call the rabbi in omaha who calls the charge extremely stupid. You didnt call the head of the Jewish Federation of omaha, nebraska, that said the charge is absurd. I say this as a jew, we should have much Higher Standards than this kind of cavalier defamation of people because you didnt like one phrase they uttered seven or eight years ago. Lobbies intimidate people. Thats part of what they do. Whether its the gun lobby or Health Care Lobby or unions. Theyre in the business of doing that. To say that because chuck hagel said its true about the proisrael lobby and used the term jewish lobby, which i agree is inaccurate which was also used by the head of the conference of president s of major jewish organizations last december, i really think was extremely unfortunate and i really hope youll think again before doing so in the future. Again, you responded to my column by accusing me of being completely indifferent when it came to ts subjects of homophobia. I said you have a different standard. You said that i didnt write about these subjects. I demonstrated no. I said you a different standard and you do have a different standard. I demonstrated to you that i do. I do care about antisemitism as do i. And people should stand up and say, this is extremely you know, this is extremely worrisome. This raises eyebrows. Is it dispositive . No. But it ought to raise eyebrows. What i am stunned by. People moved to hagels defense largely because he takes views that are not necessarily congenial to israel, including a lot of jews. People should wait. Barack and Israels Deputy foreign minister have both said hes a friend to israel. So, i dont know who it is who is exactly saying hes not a friend to israel. Those people seem to have a lot of credibility on the subject. You think his views on israel and the middle east are ones, you think the United States should be following more closely. I think the important thing about having, is in a way, he would be the Obama Administrations mayor dugan. He is the guy in israel from the National Security establishment who pushed back when Benjamin Netanyahu he felt was talking too cavalierly about the prospect of war against iran. Hagel has not ruled out military force against iran. He ruled it in in an oped last fall. He said, again and again, very eisenhower ways. As youve made the point, eisenhower was always saying, lets not pretend we can control war once its unleashed. Thats the point that hagel made again and again. I want that perspective in the iran debate. I think thats part of what makes it important. What i find striking about this debate and this, i think, hopefully brings us to the larger debate about chuck hagels world view is that if you are a skeptic of intervention, u. S. Intervention in iran and certainly if youre against Israeli Military intervention in iran, as i think you are, peter, you couldnt possibly send a worst signal than to appoint chuck hagel as your defense secretary. You know, New York Times has a profile of shimon perez that was done back in july of last year before the election. Its about how the president of israel largely symbolic position, adamantly opposed an israeli strike because he said, i guarantee you, if it comes to it, the americans are going to do it. So, a lot of the israeli calculation back in september and october when they were thinking about a strike was, no, lets hold off because we have some confidence that the Obama Administration, if it comes to it, well do it. If its necessary. A lot of the people who supported president obama said, mark my words. He is a man of his word, he does this quite seriously. Then he turns around and appoints perhaps the most prominent skeptic of any kind of military intervention in iran as his defense secretary. If youre sitting in israel, youre wondering just how reliable is the United States and maybe we should go it alone. So, for that reason alone, simply the appointment of chuck hagel is going to make the israelis more skittish and perhaps more prone to act. Heres the irony. Who said that military action against iran could prove catastrophic . That was robert gates. Our former defense secretary. Who said that it could embroil us in a conflict that we can forget . That was leon panetta. The guy hes replacing. It was true, bret, i think you are right that we need the military option on the table as hagel has repeatedly said. But that surely cant mean we cant have a public conversation in this country about the tremendous dangers that war would bring. That to me is absolutely a conversation we have to have and being led by the pentagon because its people in the u. S. Military who are most concerned about this. All right, were going to have to leave it at that and we will have a chance to have both of you back to have another spirited conversation. Peter beinart, Bret Stephens, thanks for joining us. Up next, a new kind of cold war. The participants are the same, the weapons this time are legislation. What is going on . We will tell you. Morning starts in high spirits, but theres a growing pain in his lower back. As lines grow longer, his pain continues to linger. But after a long day of helping others, he gets some helpful advice. Just two aleve have the strength to keep back pain away all day. Today, jason chose aleve. Just two pills for all day pain relief. Try aleve d for strong, all day long sinus and headache relief. Try aleve d for strong, all day long ive always kept my eye on her. But with so much health care noise, i didnt always watch out for myself. With unitedhealthcare, i get personalized information and rewards for addressing my health risks. But shes still going to give me a heart attack. Thats health in numbers. Unitedhealthcare. [ male announcer ] when diarrhea hits, kaopectate stops it fast. Powerful liquid relief speeds to the source. Fast [ male announcer ] stop the uhoh fast with kaopectate. Relations between washington and moscow have reached a new low. Bringing back memories of the cold war. The current fit for tat started when the u. S. Congress passed the black list russian officials alleged to have been involved in the death of russian lawyer bans them from coming to the United States and freezes their assets. A broader list than that. Russia responded with a ban on u. S. Adoptions from russia and a threat to bar u. S. Human rights abuses. Some say this is all evidence of a new cold war. Stephen cohen is a professor at nyu and William Brodeur was an ambassador in russia, and was his former employer and he is, of course, one of the biggest proponents behind the magnitsky act. Welcome to you both. Thank you. William, explain the importance of the act from your point of view . Very simply, it is a piece of legislation which is sort of designed for the modern day problems of whats going on in russia. In russia, you have a regime which is basically out to steal as much money as possible from their own people. In response to that, when people try to stop it in any way, like sergei magnitsky, they get killed. What the act does is it creates consequences for the corrupt murdering kelp to crates running russia today and creates consequences outside of russia by banning their visas and freezing their assets in america. Steve cohen, you disagree with the magnitsky act. Do you Wish Congress hadnt passed it . I do for many reasons, but as you said in your introduction i think moscow and washington are sliding into a new cold war, which would be very bad for National Security and the magnitsky act further poisons the relationship. Mr. Browder is right to a certain extent, but not quite as simple as he says. Even though this may be this act just a lot of words, it will have consequences. For example, there are groups in moscow and in the United States that have a whole list of names that they want to put on this black list. There are even people who want to put putins name on it on the ground that he abused civil liberties. What would that mean for the relationship between president obama and putin, if they want to have an urgent meeting, lets say in the United States about Missile Defense or syria. This is a kind of cold war atmospheric poisoning that we dont need at this time. William, what do you think of this adoptions issue . Why did they choose it and what effect do you think it will have . Well, very simply, what it shows in the most harsh way is what putin is really all about. So, the magnitsky act came about and the russians said we have to react to it. They looked at the possible reactions. One reaction would be to sanction american businesses, but then putin looked at it and said that might harm my own pocketbook. Then they said maybe well do some type of reaction in terms of foreign policy. When they looked at the sort of portfolio of how they could react, what they realized is there was really nothing they could not cooperate on because they are not cooperating at the moment already. They looked through their portfolio and said, wait a second. One thing americans want which we have, they want to adopt our disabled orphans. They said, lets take that away from them. Not even looking for a second at what that meant for these unbelievably vulnerable children. And, so, essentially what it shows is the absolute sort of lack of morales of vladimir pewter. Putin. Steven, isnt it fair to say that russia seems to be in some along some of these dimensions moving backwards, that is, that there is less freedom of speech, civil society, and the state seems more abusive than certainly people like you had hoped ten years ago . Certainly more than i had hoped. Speaking historically, since i am a historian, russian is now in one of its periodic cycles of repressive politics from the taliban. From the top. Theres no doubt about that. But in the context of russias history, its a very mild cycle of repression, and its accompanying, interestingly enough, from putin, from the kremlin, by a certain opening up of the political system, including the electoral sy