Theyre also saying if the organization is if deep trouble why did we just close 22 embassies and consulates in 17 different countries. And i think both statements are true. I mean an organization that is in deep trouble can still talk to each other and make threatening statements that we pick upment does it mean that theyre operationalizing something, does it mean they have the capability, thats a whole different question. And as a factual matter the last time they attacked successly in the west was july 7th 005 in london. Rose we conclude with dr. Atul gawande who wrote an interesting piece in the new yorker magazine about innovation. The most intriguing question in my mind is health care has been about the individual doctor and their brilliance for the last half century, where weve had knowledge and capabilities. But now the knowledge and the capability has outstripped what our own, any one of our brains as doctors can hold in our head any more. Our own skills will never be perfect enough. And we cant hold on to all the knowledge. So now its teams. I call it going from a world of cowboys to pit crews. And its such a fundamental change. Rose the new iranian president , the possibility of a terrorist attack, and atul gawande on innovation when we continue. Funding for charlie rose was provided by the following additional funding provided by these funders captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose irans new president was sworn in this weekend. Hasan rouhani a political moderate was the surprise win never junes president ial elections. He replaces iran former leader mahmoud ahmadinejad. However open that rouhani might be more willing to negotiate over irans alleged Nuclear Weapons program has been complicated by recent news. As jay solomon reported in the wall street journal, iran could be pursuing a new path to making material. It could give them enough plutonium to make a weapon by this time next year. Jay solomon is a Foreign Affairs correspondent for the wall street journal. He joins me now from washington. Also with us in washington ray takeyh, he is a senior fellow for middle Eastern Studies at the council on foreign relation. I welcome him back as well. So tell me, jay, about this. What is it that they have that may be a faster path to a Nuclear Capacity . Theyre constructing a heavy water reactor in the northwest in a town called iraq, arak. And in some ways its not new. I think in 2004 they started construction and as far back as 2006 the u. N. Security Council Passed a resolution telling the iranians they had to stop. Whats alarmed. Aiea, u. S. And europeans in recent, kind of last three or four months is that iranians have been saying were going Start Testing this facility by the end of the year this year. And were going to start introducing Nuclear Materials into it by next summer. So conceivably i dont think they could actually start extracting plutonium immediately. But once you start firing up that reactor, you are producing weaponsgrade plutonium. And you know everyone has been focused so much on the enrichment facilities that the iranians have been building which are vast. But the plutonium producing heavy water reactor is the path that india and pakistan used to produce their first atomic weapons. And the North Koreans also used the plutonium from a reactor. So everyone has been so fixated on the enrichment facility. And here the iranians are now saying were going to fire up this heavy water reactor by next year. And ive been struck a bit by talking to some of the israelis. Because you know, theyve been threatening netanyahu has been threatening and i think some people have become, you kind of become enured to it. But theyve twice in their history have blown up reactors just before they became operational. And the israelies will say once the materials are introduced to the reactor its too late. So if theres going to be a strike, they would have to do it before the materials are introduced which the iranians would say is sometime next summer. So its a dangerous other path. And the negotiations, all of the Nuclear Diplomacy has been so focused on the enrichment, suddenly now you have the iraq heavy water reactor emerging and you know there is a real fear that that could be another path to a weapon. Rose what would be the time line for a, the other process wince mean if it started up next year it could start producing plutonium immediately. And the estimates are that it would produce about two bombs worth of weapons grade plutonium a year. Then it gets very technical. Some people said it could take another year before they would yield enough, maybe another year and a half before they produce enough plutonium that would be usable in a bomb. And they would also have to have a processing facility to actually you know harvest the plutonium from the reactor which as far as the iaea knows they havent built yet. But a lot of the stuff they have done over years has been secretive. So you know, the start date would probably be sometime mid next year. There are actual, the extraction of plutonium could be another 18 months after that. I think that would be the most accurate time line. Rose what do you know about this, ray . Well, i mean, i think it has come as jay suggested, somewhat of a surprise. Even though it shouldnt have been, because everyone has been concerned about the totality of Irans Nuclear program. But as jay suggested, so much effort and so much of the thinking about irans program has focused on this enrichment capability, for justifiable reasons. That enrichment capability is growing and is quite sophisticated and is advancing in terms of quantities produce, gradation of uranium enriched and the centrifuges introduced. But suddenly we have this whole new dimension to Irans Nuclear production that would be subject of negotiations and subject of some sort of restrictions. Rose do you assume that theres any difference in Irans Nuclear program and decisionmaking because they have a new president . Well, i mean to be fair to president ahmadinejad and at times one has to be fair on his behalf, he did want a Nuclear Arms Control agreement. Particularly since 2009 when he was of such diminished legitimacy at home that he was hoping for some sort of a triumph abroad but he couldnt get there. He did negotiate the brazilturkey deal that fell apart in may of 2010. So he was attempting to have a Nuclear Agreement with the United States, rather desperately. But he just couldnt push it through the system. Now Hasan Rouhani comes with some degree of advantage because hes a president that essentially campaigned on the issue of dealing with the west with a better tone and better style. But he would have to have he would confront the same sort of an obstacles. He has to essentially go through the system and attempt to negotiate first with the iranians, and then with the International Community as represented by. Rose i never quite understood why the u. S. Turned down the turkeybrazilian aspect of that . Why did they . Well, i think there were a number of aspects of the turkeybrazil deal that the United States felt were inadequate. For instance there was acknowledgment of irans enrichment. Iranian was maintain the possession of those Nuclear Resources that they ship abroad, as opposed to being under the custody of the aiea. There were a number, the administration, about nine, ten objections to the turkeybrazil deal. To be fair to the administration, they were prepared to negotiate that with the turkish and braz yell brazilian representatives as well as iranians. But once that agreement in its entirement proved unacceptable not just to the United States but to the other members, it fell apart. Rose lets talk about what we expect were ry ryu rouhani. All this talk about being a moderate, what does that mean in his case, other than tone . Well so, far we have seen much of the tone. I would have to say in the past ten years when hes been outside government hes actually been fairly lucid and thoughtful in terms of his criticism of the negotiating style of the iranian government. He seems more flexible and outlook more pragmat anything terms of his disposition. But again, Hasan Rouhani is coming to the scene at a time when iran has a fairly mature Nuclear Program. So in 2003 when he was wrestling with this issue, he was attempting to maintain options that iran did not yet have. Today hes trying to preserve what it actually does have, and advance the program. So far the only thing that hes promised that is tangible is greater degree of transparency. Not necessarily dismantling any aspect of the program. But making it subject to greater degree of International Scrutiny and therefore international confidence. That is unlikely to be unacceptable to the five who actually are looking to the United States and others for iran to actually retract some of its capabilitiesment so all this has to be kind of worked out if it can be worked out at all. Rose jay . I think one of the interesting things, just watching rouhani since the election and his comments in the last couple of days is he has really linked irans economic woes to sanction relief in a very, you know ahmadinejad would sort of say at times he kind of would say were having some problems. But the message usually was were going to get passed this. Were become morning selfsufficient. Rouhani has taken a very different position, and really acknowledged that they are hurting. And that the nuclear, the sanks from the Nuclear Program are the reasons. So that is an interesting new dynamic and some of the people he put in his cabinet or he has nominated that still need to be approved by the parliament do have, there are a lot of technocrats that are seen as more expert in the economy. There is the new foreign minister who spent a lot of time in the u. S. So there does seem to be a new dynamic which is going to make the five plus 1 process pretty interesting in the next three so six months because i dont think theyll have that much time to at least show some progress to keep both sides domestic situations under control. If i can say one thing. There is always considerable degree, more continuity in the United States and irans approach to each other than we think. For instance, in 2008 when president obama came to power, the paradigm that the Bush Administration had, the two tract policy of negotiations and sanctions was largely preserved. As a matter of fact, some of the personnel were preserved as well. And i think between president khatami and ahmadinejad there were some degree of continuity and i expect some degree of continuity as well. Obviously the context of iranian politics and economy has changed as jay suggested. The economy is in freefall so that may actually create a new imperative that changes the dynamic and kind of disrupts this continuity that has existed in both countries approach to each other. Rose has it changed in any way through public pronouncements the mindset or the position of the Supreme Leader . He seems fairly consistent, actually. He continues to harbor resentment towards the United States. He continues to be enormously suspicious of the United States. He continues to suggest that the path out of irans predictment is what he calls resistance economy and selfsufficiency so those themes have remained the same in his case. So hes in that particular sense hes at osd with the pronouncement of the president or newly inaugurated president. So again were getting into a situation where iranians are speaking in multiple languages. Were you surprised that he appointed zarif as his foreign minister . Yes, i was because there are important sectors of the conservative wing of the iranian politics that tend to be very suspicious of him. They are suspicious because he has spent so much time in the United States. They are suspicious that he has embraced american mannerisms and perhaps american view of things. So he has a foreign minister that has great degree of regard in the United States, and in the u. N. Itself. But there are important conservative voices that are quite suspicious of him and have always been so. Ive been interested in the reaction in washington and europe to zarif because its kind ever a double edge sword. On the one hand they think oh this is a guy we can deal with. We know him, he speaks our language quite well, literally. But there is also this fear that, you know, ahmadinejad was the perfect enemy in a lot of ways. He was the perfect foil. He made it very easy in a lot of ways to get sanctions and oil embargo and a lot of more pressure on iran just by, you know, the language he used, his appearanceses, his denial of the holocaust. Now they have extremely sophisticated diplomats coming in who are going to make it, you know, i think the real fear is the program will continue but these guys are going to be much more artful at sort of dragging thing as long andrew hani himself, you know, when he was the Nuclear Negotiator from 2003 to 2 o 005 made statements about, well, you know, i kind of deflected the pressure. But you know we continued on with developing the enrichment sites. I sort of protected them through the art of diplomacy. So on the one hand its a warmer, kind of more engaging face that seems to be emerging am but i think in some ways that might make it, the actual Nuclear Negotiations more difficult. Rose much has always been said about that iran has not made the decision to go ahead with Nuclear Weapons. It wants to be able to make that decision but that, in fact, has not been made. What would cause them to make a decision, the capacity to do it . Yeah, i think the most, the most accurate assumption is that theyre going for the japan type model right now. Theyre going to have every, you know, both through the plutonium path and enrichment path, theyre going to have the materials. They are studied how to make weapons in the past. So you get up right to that edge and you know, i think whats been interesting with cha meni over the last six, 12 months, netanyahu as you remember, the israeli Prime Minister last year set a red line of 250 kilograms. And they have not breached that yet. They are staying right below it. So it doesnt seem like they want to cause a crisis on that front. But at the same time both on the heavy water reactor which we talked about and enrichment site t just keeps growing and getting bigger and becoming sort of a selffulfilling prophecy at some point. Like ray was saying, its some of bigger than it was when rouhani was there in 2002, 2003 through 5. It is a totally different game, the negotiating strategy will have to change. Rose speak of iranian Foreign Affairs, it seems to me that he has said, the support for the Syrian Government will continue. And the support for hezbollah will continue. And the support for other groups that have caused some concern in the west will continue. Is that right, ray . Thats right. I mean once you step away from the Nuclear Issue you see an entirely, kind of a very complex picture in the region. The iranians seem to think and theres evidence to suggest theyre right that the region is increasingly polarizing and dividing against itself. But the basis of those division of polarities are actually sectarian. So on the one hand you have the saudies and gulf states attempting to buttress the sunni order and on the other hand you have the iranians sporting what they call the forces of resistance which happens to be hezbollah, the assad regime in syria and various palestinian rejectionist groups. So the middle east is actually being divided against itself. And iranians and saudies are in different parts of that. And the United States is actually involved in that particularly arab cold war as well side well the sunni regimes as well so this is quite a polarized divided region. And the question of the Nuclear Issues will at some point have to be considered in the context of the politics of the region. The decisions that iranians would have to make about their Nuclear Issue have to do with how they see their role in the region and their power and presence in that region. And how the Nuclear Issue helps buttress or deflate that. Rose jay . One of the interesting things coming out of this Cabinet Reshuffle or the names that have been in the new cabinet, in iran, ahmadinejad is something, he had like nine ministers who were identified or seen as part of the revolutionary guard corp. Which was a huge, his sort of government was seen as dominated by the irgc which most, you know, analysts, most people, diplomats dominate decision make on the syria question. So i think one of the interesting dynamics with the new government is you have a much less of an irgc formal role in the cabinet n the government. And what tensions that will create going forward. If ray was talking about zarif who is not seen as having Good Relationship with the irgc, if he plays a big role on the nuclear front, will that cause more tensions . Will they try to sabotage the syria file seems to be totally in the hands of the irgc andrew hanis comments seem consistent with what they were saying am but still that less overt role of the irgc in the next government is going to open up some interes