>> we talk to anant agarwal, amy guttman, tom friedman and joel klein. >> i do think that the blended model is the one that we can say with certainty is revolutionizing higher education now and actually k through 12 as well. i think it is still, we are not online. because it takes an exceptional person to be so motivated and so creative to do something online and get the same thing out of it as wow would get with having a master teacher. >> i think what online learning and moocs has done it has put education front and center of the national and international eco, i think people are discussing it and i think teachers are becoming rock stars and i think education as a field i think is becoming exciting and i think people who pay a lot more attention to it and i think that is really good thing. >> rose: syria and chemical weapons, online education, taking new strides. when we continue. funding for charlie rose was provided by the following. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> we begin this evening with the story of syria, and the possible use of chemical weapons. today the white house announced its belief that the syrian government had used chemicals weapons in a statement to reporters, to chuck hagel said their findings call for a full investigation. >> this morning the white house delivered a letter to several members of congress on the topic of chemical weapons used in syria, the letter, which we made available to you here shortly, soon george gets it, we will give it to you. states that the u.s. intelligence community assesses with some degree of varying confidence that the syrian regime has used chemicals weapons on a sml scale in syria. specifically the chemical agent sarin. >> as i have said the intelligent community has been assessing information for some time on this issue. and the decision to reach this conclusion was made within the past 24 hours. and i have been in contact with senior officials in washington today and most recently the last couple of hours on this issue. we cannot confirm the origin of these weapons, but we do believe that any use of chemical weapons in syria would very likely have been originated with the assad regime. >> president obama declared the use of chemicals weapons would constitute a red line for united states action in syria, joining me now from washington, d.c. is congressman mike rogers, he is the chairman of the house intelligence committee and i am pleased to have him back on this program. welcome. >> charlie, thanks for having me. >> so what do you make of this and what do you think it should -- what action should follow? >> well, you know, last august i think it was august 20th the president said hey if they are moving these chemical weapons and putting them in position to use, if they use them that is a game changer, and think about where we are, charlie, so i said about a month ago i believe that reviewing all of the intelligence over the last two years from multiple sources, that some quantity of chemical weapons has been used, the british have now come out and said they believe it, the french come out and said they believe it, the israelis and now the acknowledgment from the white house which i think is an important step. but this is critical. there is destabilization happening around that region, this will only inflame that in a way that will cause a huge humanitarian crisis and i argue a national security destabilizing crisis in the mideast. this is the red line i do believe the president talked about, and it really can't be a dotted line, this has to be where u.s. leadership steps up and i am not talking about big military operations charlie i think you know that but bringing our leadership and unique abilities to the table with our arab allies. >> >> rose: do you believe what has taken because because, because of the intelligence you have seen and your conversations with me about your assessment of that, or are they saying simply well we need to take a look at this further? we need more exclusive proof? >> are they at a different place than you are? >> well i will tell you the intel wrens is not in a different place. now, as a policymaker you can use that to make decisions, i get concerned that they keep changing the standard here, and as a reason not to do something. and listen, there i is a very senior middle east leader in town who is has expressed great concern over the destabilizing factor of lack of u.s. leadership and again, they really immediate somebody to put around the table that can show the leadership and has the kind of capabilities that the united states has when it comes to intelligence and intelligence packages and training and leadership for these arab league partners, they are a little fraction naturalizing but have the same goal, that's what we are talking about .. and my fear, charlie, is if we let this go and widens in use the chaos, the refugee, refugee problem, the humanitarian crisis it causes, the sheer death by a horrible, violent death of chemical weapons all further destabilizes a region where we have lots of allies and lots of responsibilities and we can do small and effective now and prevent big and ugly later and we ought to do that in a way, again this is not a military operation, i want to make that very clear but we do need to step up to the plate when it comes to leadership, both more the opposition and our arab league partners. >> rose: i know two leaders in the middle east i am not telling you who you meant one is can king abdullah and qatar and the emir has been to see the president. what is the lack of leadership, whoever said that is asking for that do they want the united states to do? >> and i visit with all of the leaders of that region and their military intelligence leaders and their defense leaders. the frustration level is through the roof when it comes to our arab league partners and turkey and others and part of the problem is, all of those folks are equal partners when they sit at the table, they do need that -- you know, that senior leadership of the united states sitting there to work through some of the most delicate issues. so you have other nation states who are participating and arming the rebels to different degrees of efficacy and we need to have a unified effort, we need to make sure the people who are receiving this have good intentions once the assad regime is gone, that's the kind of value the united states brings, and that special capability still that we can make them more effective in those operations. that is really what w they are looking for. they don't want the 101st airborne division and big naval forces they want the leadership and in those few special capabilities that we can provide to actually bring the regime to a close, and/or, charlie, establish our ability to be able to negotiate a diplomatic solution. right now we don't have the credibility, really from the opposition or the arab league because of our lack of leadership to do that. once we re-establish that and it is easily done, i think we can have a much more important role to bring this to a peaceful conclusion and try to stem the chaos that is going to happen after the fall of the regime. >> rose: do you think the president, certainly the president would not agree about the lack of leadership but he might want to have a conversation about what he sees as the dangers of doing, of getting entangled and engaged in ways that might not over the long run be helpful for the united states. >> absolutely. and those have been well vetted two years into this since we started, and again, these are small and effective things. we are not going to own this thing when it is over. very rarely do you have the arab league partners that we have in that region all asking for u.s. leadership, asking for us to be a leading voice at the table. again, they are not asking for big military roles at all, i would oppose and that would be a disaster for us, that's not what we are talking about here, but, you know, outsourcing it to the united nations to do an investigation of which we all know will take a long time is not the answer. they are looking for us to sit at that table, provide the things that we talked about in a way that is meaningful to the conclusion so that we can empower the arab league partners to take the lead, so when this is over and there is that chaos it is not going to be u.s. forces in there, it is going to be arab league forces in there bringing stability and security to a post assad syria. >> repeating myself but i want to do so in terms of accuracy. clearly you believe that britain and israel and other countries have -- are convinced that syria has crossed the red line proposed and suggested by president obama? there is no doubt in your mind that they believe there is enough evidence of syrian use of chemical weapons to have crossed the red line that the president has spoken to? >> yes. and i want to make sure, on august he said move and put in a position to use and use, i believe that -- that particular set of standards has been met in the use of those chemicals weapons. i believe when you look at all of that, charlie, all of the intelligence over the last two years, i also conclude that some small quantity of chemical weapons has been used. that is basically what britain is saying, france is saying, israel is saying, and now you have a bit of an acknowledgment from the white house that is happening, yes, exactly. >> rose: what is leadership? >> well, again, it is bringing a coordinated effort from our arab league partners and the turks to the table, and that really hasn't happened yet, so they all sit there as a unified -- as equal partners, you need that kind of head of the table to help bring them together, we offer that, we offer in a way no other country can, and they are asking for it, that is what is very different here, and we have the other special capabilities, training, intelligence, vetting. >> rose: right. >> those kind of things to make them much more impactful and nobody trains to the rule of law of war like the united states. those are the kind of people you want trained to go back into syria to do good things and that is a very unique capability that the united states can bring and we ought to employ it. >> rose: but my impression was that was one of the purposes of john kerry's trip to the region. >> well, clearly and obviously it hasn't been successful if that was the goal of this particular trip and part of the reason is you can't just go and talk about it. again, remember it wasn't that long ago that the opposition forces didn't even want to meet with the secretary of the united states of america. why? because they felt they had been abandoned and they didn't see anything of value that they were doing either with the arab league or others and believe me when the arab league when you meet with them one on one they are not very happy with the united states right now, they think they have been abandoned with this u.s. leadership role. we have to just engage at that level. we can't disengage from the world and hope for the best. if we engage at that leadership level, we can make a tremendous difference in stopping the violence. this isn't about escalating violence, it is about deescalating violence and find a way out of this that doesn't slaughter another 100,000 people and more importantly, charlie and you and i talked about this. those conventional weapons that are all over syria, if that falls in the hands of al qaeda, or hezbollah, the destabilizing faferkt there factor there does impact the safety of the united states, it destabilizing the middle east and southern europe, we really are in a position to try the stop and d do do that, t with big military but smart power decisions and leadership at the arab league table. >> rose: the question remains, the president, let's assume the president exercises leadership, he engages the arab neighbors, he engages a range of people to say this red line has been crossed, at some point, the results of this has to be action and what is the action? >> well, there are strong interests on behalf of some arab league partners to take some action. that would be their role to do it if that was the line we decided. we also have a unique capability to make sure if we know that they are using chemicals weapons and put them in a position for use, we have a capability to make it less likely that they would be successful, and i argue we should deploy that as soon as possible in order to make sure that more people aren't slaughtered with chemical weapons and then destabilize with this huge humanitarian refugee crisis that you know would follow the use of any larger scale chemical weapon. we ought to do those simple things and the actual effort of getting into secure it afterwards when the chaos breaks out and the leader is gone would be led by the arab league but it can't be led by the arab league if there isn't a clear leader at the voice to provide assignments according to capability when assad falls and right now that is a missing part. that's where the united states can be so valuable and it is so important that we have that leadership role and we ought to do it now to prevent a further catastrophe. >> rose: the united states is giving serious consideration to this right now and appreciates the red line has been crossed, and the time to exercise leadership is upon them. >> i don't feel comfortable that that is happening right now. i know earlier in the day, there was some discussions about going through the, you know, panoply of options but we have had that discussion for 18 months now. so i don't have any indication today and i don't -- i just wait for them to tell me it is my job as chairman of the intelligence committee to go find out that there is something brewing there that would lead me to be comfortable in the sense we are going to have this leadership role. including by the way talking to many arab league partners who also don't believe this is going to happen any time soon. so -- and i think they are walking their way back a little bit charlie when we say well we have to further investigation, that is just, candidly i don't understand that, that is just code word for me i don't want to make a decision today. this is never an easy decision but it is an important decision, i think he would have bipartisan support to do this, i know he would, we want the president to make is decision, that's why we have been calling on him for some time, we better do the smart small thing now before this thing gets really big and ugly later and we are going to have more difficult decisions to make. >> rose: mike rogers, thank you. >> thank you so much, charlie. >> rose: congressman mike rogers, chairman of the select committee on intelligence for the house of representatives. back in a moment, stay with us. >> rose: millions of students will take courses taught by the best american universities but many will never step foot inside a classroom, they will study using massive open online courses, moocs, online classes have changed the way people learn, they are part of an ongoing debate about place of technology in education. joining me now to talk about the future of online education, anant agarwal, he is a ceo of edix 1 of the first online learning platforms, amy guttman, joel klein and ceo of amplify and tom friedman of "the new york times", i am pleased to have all of them here, because tom and i have talked about this, i will begin with him. is this at long last an idea whose time has come? >> definitely, charlie. you know, i think all of the forces of connectivity have reached a point where we can now really not only dream about but actually deliver the best teaching from the best teachers from a whole range of universities to people all over the world at a speed, scope, scale and price that was simply, you know, impossible just a decade ago. a couple little things they have to still overcome, not little but i think they are imminently overcomable, one is the security issue, did that person take the course, take the test, et cetera and i think they will overcome that and the second is certification, did you not just take the course but did you learn something and can we certify you learned something? and i think everyone here will give you, you know, much more than i can about how they are overcoming those problems and when they do, i think this goes to scale. >> rose: sounds like a business to me. >> it is much more than a business. i think even more than overcoming problems, i look at the opportunity. i think that there are things we can do with online learning technologies that can dramatically improve the quality of education, so for example,. >> rose: the learning experience will be better. >> will be much better, a regular classroom as an instructor, i know very little about how my student are learning, i like to view what you are doing with online learning, i call that particle accelerator for learning where we can use the data and get these analytics and research as to how students are learning. and overtime, provide them with much more of a personalized learning experience overtime, the real exciting part is the opportunity much more than the immediate problems which an engineer can solve. >> what are you doing? >> we are 12 kindergarten, 12 to twelfth grade and we are doing a combination, what anant says is twakt exactly right we are taking data for the first time and really to inform instruction, personalize it so kids can get what they need, not just get the common approach. first of all we have now a tablet that is being used in schools. it is a learning platform. it is not about the tablet, it is a way the teacher can control the classroom, orchestrate the lessons get the content to the kids and the third thing, charlie is building a curriculum i think will change the world and i think what an that said is very powerful here which is, we need to use this to dramatically improve the teaching and learning experience in our classrooms, teachers are embracing it and excited about it, and the kids are responding to it very, very positively, one of the kids we interviewed said you know, education i is is goig to have a, it factor education has a factor of fun gets us more engaged and excited and we can do all of these things and the great thing is, we are in the earliest innings of a game that is just beginning but the potential is absolutely enormous. >> rose: are you ready for this, president guttman? >> we are off and running and excited about it. a couple of things. to what joel said, really, it is really important, it is not what we teach, it is what really counts is what our students learn, and there is no doubt that the learning experience of combining online education with interaction with your students is better for the for the on campus experience and at the same time what we are ready for in our mission is going to be more fulfilled is the amplification of access. access to some of our courses is going to expand -- is expanding exponentially, i will give you an example, rob greiss teaches single variance calculus, not a sexy course you think, 50,000 students from 60 countries signed up for it, and he is flipping his classroom, a pen and his student love it because what he can do online, he says just makes the blackboard look dull. >> so are you ready to give degrees? >> we give degrees right now, charlie. and it is not a substitute for the campus based experience but rob greiss's course has been certified by the american council of education, and there will be places that give credit for it, and we are, ourselves may give credit, you know, bc calculus, advanced placement credit for it and that is just the beginning. the beginning in just this past year, just penn, half a million students hav