Hour, next. Rose mr. S captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Ecretary, this this journey, this part of your life is coming to an end. Let me talk about iran first. Sure. Rose how do you view that that the primary legacy for john kerry . Well, i dont think there is any one thing, if i can say, respectfully, that is the legacy. I think the legacy is several fold, i mean to the degree there is a legacy. But these four years have been defined by a world around us that is going through massive transformation. Some people confuse that transformation with sins of omission or commission by an administration, but, in fact, there are forces that are at play that we cant necessarily stop or shift direction of, we have to manage, and im speaking specifically of Something Like the arab spring, for instance. We couldnt have stopped the arab spring. We couldnt keep a lid on that. Nobody could. That happened, and it happened because of a combination of new communications, aspirations, madermity, the intentions created because of the invasions of iraq which left shia and sunni with a new definition and contest, it happened because of aspirations of young people, above all, because of bad governance, failing states, so there are many forces that are unleashed right now. So the task for any administration is to tame the worst manifestations of these forces, to try to put together a strategy for uh how the United States can, in fact, advance its values and protect its interests in the mix of that transformation. I believe weve done a pretty darn good job of managing more of these crises that have come simultaneously than at anytime in creasent memory, and, i mean, if you look i mean, i have said to many people, and i will stand by this, and its completely legitimate that the United States of america in the last four years has been more engaged, more proactively in more places with more crises of different kinds and with positive impact than at anytime in american history, and you can look in africa where were on the cusp of a generation being born of kids free from aids, where restopped ebola without the manager of people dying like they predicted, or the South China Sea where we asserted rights of navigation or ukraine where we put sanctions in place, held europe together, or iran where we got an agreement with a country we hadnt talked to in 35 years to stop its Nuclear Weaponry program, assuming thats, in fact, where they were going, and joining the International Community under the i. E. A. To live up to standards. We had a trifecta with respect to the environment, unprecedented. If we had just done the paris agreement, that would be a huge deal, and we sent a signal to the global marketplace about clean and alternative renewable energy, but we didnt just do that. We got the Airline Industry together, altogether the size of the 12th largest emitter in the world, and we have them reducing their emissions under a new agreement. About 200 nations came together in rwanda and, there, we managed to phase out refrigerants which are a thousand times more potent than Carbon Dioxide and which could in and of itself save the planet a half degree cen centige of warming. In afghanistan, we held a government together that threatened to implode completely with the afghan effort completely shredded as a result because of a bad election, so we put a unity government together. So i can go from place to place, charlie, where i think the United States has offered leadership and it contradicts completely this notion of retreat or retrenchment that the United States is somehow pulling back that is a false narrative that is being advanced by people of different interests. Rose let me come to that point, too. Do you believe that because of the events of the last several years that there is a new world order emerging . Clearly, there are strains, because of this transformation ive talked about. Now, for many, many years, the United States and americans have been able to, at times, win even when we made bad decisions because we were really the only power standing for a long period of time. After world war ii, as the order emerged and we had Bretton Woods and created the u. N. And all these things emerged which is the order as we have referred to it and n. A. T. O. And so forth, the United States has been critical to the development of all of these structures, but increasingly other countries are more powerful, inherently. Rose and want to participate . And they want to participate, and they dont want to simply sit there and take orders from us or simply be passive about the choices that we are making in the context of those institutions. So, china, 1. 3 billion people, second largest economy in the world, which will be automatically the largest economy in the world at some point in time wants to play differently. They want to be more determinative of their future and protect their interests. Likewise, other countries russia, if you have a leader of a country like russia whose leader says the most tragic moment of the 20th century was the fall of the soviet union, you can have a sense of where that person is coming from as he moves in response to things that the United States rose he wants to restore the russia that was . He wants to restore a level of respect and acceptance and perhaps even more than that with respect to rose do we give him that . We want to respect you and we want to give you a level of acceptance after all, you have the Worlds Largest collection of nuclear weapons. I think its important and clear from the diplomacy that i pursued, i think its very important the talk to russia, and i think people need to take note of a certain reality russia, when brought into the process and respected in the conversation and dealt with actually produced, and we were able to cooperate even as we know that they have a different attitude about certain things, they have a different world view, they have a different outlook, and we are not going to be easily walking hand in hand in some kumbaya fashion down the road that brings us together because of the differences of that world view and other interests. Russia doesnt like n. A. T. O. Russia doesnt like the expansion of n. A. T. O. Russia doesnt like the Ballistic Missile defense. Russia doesnt like what we did in libya where they believe that we reached beyond the u. N. Resolution. Russia doesnt like color revolutions. They dont like what happened with ershiancoe in ukraine. There are a bunch of things that are reactive so well have to work through those kinds of things in a relationship. But when we have to get chemical weapons out of syria, russia was the cooperating party that helped to make that happened and, without them, it probably wouldnt have happened. Rose but as soon as you say that i mean, you have been in what has been an unsuccessful effort to get them to help form a transition government. You have given i dont know how many days and how many hours and how many sessions trying to get them to help form a transition government so you can transition assad out of power. Instead of doing that, what they have done is supported assad on the ground, and he is now stronger than hes been in a very long time. He is stronger than he has been, charlie. Rose because of their support, because you couldnt get them to well, no, thats not completely the way it played out. There are a number of reasons why the cease fire didnt work, and there are a number of reasons why we werent able to move to the geneva thing at this point in time. One of the reasons was our own internal division here in the United States of america where we had some folks who simply didnt want to talk to russia or deal with russia, thought it was wrong to have any kind of engagement with russia and put their distrust of russia ahead of any effort to try to find a way to the table. The fact is this, hard, simple, real fact, there will be no political solution whatsoever to the crisis of syria without dealing with russia. Rose yeah, but at the same time let me just finish one thing. And the fact is what we succeeded in laying out in the course of the International Syria support Group Meetings and the u. N. Resolution is the outline of how that political solution is going to look and how its going to come about. Now, i guarantee you, there will be ultimately some kind of negotiation because there has to be, and it will follow the framework of what we laid down. Im confident of that. So while we didnt get there yet, none of that diplomacy was wasted, none of that time to have a cease fire which we had several times for a period of time is wasted because it saves some lives, i got some humanitarian assistance in, and it has established a framework which ultimately will work. The russians made a decision because of our own challenges here, we werent able to deliver. The separation of nusra. Remember, one of the deals was we were going to separate news remarks but we didnt separate nusra, it couldnt be done, it wasnt able to be done under the circumstances. Rose separate them and bring them into some kind of no, separate them out because they are al quaida and there is no keeling with them. They represent al quaida, but, unfortunately, the opposition we were supporting got enmeshed with them and it was very hard to distinguish who was who. Rose and they ended up with american supplies. In some places, in some measure, but also because it allowed assad to continually bomb people and fight, pretending he was simply going after al quaida, when, in fact, he was actually going after the opposition and never really went after i. S. I. L or daesh. So this is more complicated than meets the eye. Meanwhile, you had a major amount of proxy pressure being put on people. For instance, turkey had proxy interests. You had saudi arabia, you had the qataris and so forth, and those proxy efforts complicated what people were willing to do and what you could actually hold accountable. Rose two things about this very point. You said there were divisions if america. It is said that there were divisions within the administration, that the secretary of state you wanted to do more on the ground to give you more leverage, and you could not bring the president to that point and, therefore, you had less leverage to deal with the russians and to deliver than you wanted. Well rose speak to that, because it is history. Well, it is history, charlie, but the administration has another few days and im still here and im not going to be going backwards yet, not in that regard. There are no secrets that there were many debates in the administration and different concepts of how to deal with it. Rose you supported the 51 diplomats that you cant negotiate without an equivalence of troops on the ground. You have to have leverage to negotiate. Rose you didnt have it. Very difficult to negotiate when youre not where the other side doesnt feel compelled to be accountable or to do certain things. But thats neither here nor there now. The important thing is that, while syria has been frustrating for everybody, including president obama, the fact is that weve i think managed to marshal Major Initiative in the region that has strengthened our allies in the region partly to the eIran Nuclear Agreement. Rose you mean Sunni Arab States . Israel, u. A. E. , the saudis. Rose sunni arabs . Yes, very much. So we had a major summit at camp david where they all came in. We strengthened the military support structure, the training, the flow of weaponry they felt they needed. We have been forced we have enforced measures against iran that fell outside of the Iran Nuclear Agreement but which regarded u. N. Resolutions on arms trafficking, state sponsorship of terrorism and so forth. So i think weve managed to make it clear that the United States has been solidly engaged. Look, we put together a 68coalition country effort to defeat daesh. How can people suggest that we were retreating, when i. S. I. L is moving across iraq, threatening baghdad, black flags flying, toyotas all around, people being beheaded, and the president of the United States immediately moved to put our aircraft in the sky and begin to take them on, begin to retrain the army, rebuild the army, and, now, we have liberated 65 of iraq that was taken over by daesh, 35 to 40 of syria, and we are beginning to surround raqqa, we are in the liberation of mosul and i can tell you daesh, i. S. I. L, will be defeated sometime in the course of the next year. Rose in the next year i. S. I. L will be defeated because the two Power Centers, they will be driven out . Just driving them out of the Power Centers is not going to fully deal with the problem. Now, it could go into the next year. Im not going to get precise about the year, but its within a measurable period of time that i am confident we are going to be able to deliberate rose but in just the way i. S. I. L which came out of al quaida, the al quaida in iraq, wont there be some other terrorist organization that will be worse than they are that will follow i. S. I. L . I mean, where are we in the long struggle against terrorism . Were at the beginning of that struggle which is going to go on for some period of time. I said today at the United States nave Naval Academy that i think its a generational challenge and a big challenge. There is bocca haram, alsha bad, you can run the list of these people from South Central asia. So where i think we need to do, where i think the world has got to put more energy and effort is into a call it, and not the best name in the world but its legit because people can immediately imagine what it is, we need a new martial plan, a new greater engagement not just by the United States but by all the developed and neardeveloped world need to come together more effectively to deal with this astounding youth bulge in many rts of the world where yout have young people who, in many places, theyre not going to go to school and they dont have opportunity, and if all that we do, all of us collectively, is leave them to the devices of radical religious extremists who grab those young minds, everybody is going to have a problem going forward. So, in terms of foreign policy, it is a mistake for somebody to say were not going to deal with over there. There is no over there anymore. Everywhere is in the same place. Rose you cant deny that, i dont think, because youve heard these retorts, that after the socalled red line was crossed and there was not an american reaction, although you will say the reaction was to get the chemical weapons out, others expected more and were prepared for more and i think so were you. Secondly well, we can talk about that specifically. Let me make the other point. After what happened to mubarak, many people believe our allies had real questions about where the United States was and could they count on them, and the United States had to go to those nations and reassure them. Absolutely fair to say that some people drew a message from the departure of mubarak rose the red line. Well, ill come to the red line, but on the mubarak thing, that is, i think, erroneous because, in fact, mubarak already, by virtue of the decision of the egyptian people coming out in the streets in the tens of millions, it was clear mubarak wasnt going to supply that, egypt wasnt going to. So president obama made clear publicly what was already clear on the ground. Rose that he had to go. That he was gone, fundamentally, and that got hung somehow on the president and became this moment of doubt. Now to the red line with respect to syria. The president of the United States, barack obama, never ever retreated from his position that he was going to strike. He announced that he would strike, he announced we were going to take action, and he went to congress to ask congress for the permission to do that. He did that after david cameron, Prime Minister of britain, had gone to parliament and been turned down, and i was on a telephone call with about 100 congressmen, i think some senators, but definitely congressmen, i remember, many of whom were saying youve got to come to us, we need to be part of this. So the president decided to go to congress. Now, in the intervening time when congress was deliberating and, by the way, congress became far more difficult to persuade than anybody thought they would be but while that happened i was asked at the press conference in london is there any way that assad could avoid being bombed . And i said declaratively, yes, he could get all the chemical weapons out of syria. Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov called me within a couple of hours and said i heard what you said in london, we need to work on that. The fact is president obama and president putin had actually talked about it. We then went to work on it and, within a matter of days, we came to an agreement to get all the chemical weapons out of syria. So we, in effect, charlie, in reality, we achieved far more by having said were going to bomb, getting all the chemical weapons out, but people interpreted the president going to congress as an avoidance of the bombing, and i will absolutely confirm with you right here, yes, it did hurt us, it took hold. Somehow there was this perception that the president had backed off. Rose the perception is, if you cross the red line and you say youre going to attack if you cross the red line and you dont, even though you got the chemical weapons but what was the reason for the red line . Rose to get the weapons . No, to tell him dont use these. What was the best way for him to not to use them . Take them away. So we actually accomplished the goal exponentially beyond what we would have by bombing, but i concede the fact of how it played out