nice to talk to you. >> charlie: steven cook, thank you. pleasure. >> thank you, charlie. charlie: back in a moment. stay with us. we'll talk about the federal reserve the federal reserve has been at the center of the economic recovery since the financial crisis. spansive programs that include three rounds of bond-buying also known as quantitative easing, have pushd the limits of monetary policy. the chairman ben bernanke made waves on june 19 during a quarterly news conference. he said that if the economy continues to improve, the fed will gradually roll back 85 million dollars in the u.s. government securities it purchases each month. >> if the incoming data are broadly consistent with this forecast, the committee currently anticipates that it would be appropriately to moderate the monthly pace of purchases. ' if the subsequent data remained broadly aligned with our current expectations for the economy we would continue to reduce the pace of purchases in measured steps through the first half of next year ending purchases around mid year. >> charlie: these remarks startle

steven cook is a senior fellow frr middle east studies on the council of foreign relations and tarek masoud, of course, is middle east specialist who teaches public policy at harvard university. so tarek, where are we now in egypt? >> well, as you noted in your intro, the interim government with this newly installed president, has put forward a road map for egypt's new bright democratic future. and this includes constitutional amendments that are going to take 3 1/2 months for them to write, and then they'll put that to a referendum. and then they'll have parliamentary elections. >> and then presidential elections. >> and then president elections at some future point. so what one worries about, right? the big problem in egypt. and i think it was revealed on june 30th, is that respect for constitutions in this country is somewhat lacking. and the idea that now they're going to put out this constitution in 3 1/2 months and have a rapid vote on, it it clearly means that there's not going to be kind of public process of buy-in to get people behind this document. and so you can imagine th

for more, i'm joined by steven cook, a senior fellow for middle eastern studies at the council on foreign relations and author of "the struggle for egypt: from nasser to tahrir square." and mervat hatem, a professor of political science at howard university. stephen cook, what does this mean, this call for elections in 2014. >> well, this is an effort to put a political process together out of this very, very difficult uncertain and unstable situation. the good news in it is that they are going to approach a transition in the right way. they're going to start with a constitution and then have elections for the parliament and then have elections for the president. previously in the transition from mubarak to morsi they had elections pour the parliament and then they tried to write a constitution. then they tried to elect a president. this created all kinds of uncertainty and instability for which egyptians are now paying. >> ifill: do you think that this means that this will aow egypt to avoid a civil war? >> you mean this new road map. ifill: this new plan, this road map. >> the fact that

cook of the council on foreign relations. >> this is part of a process that began with the uprising in january 2011. egyptians are engaged in a debate, a national debate, about their identity. of course, many millions of people were out in the streets for a variety of reasons, whether it's economic grievances or concerns about the way in which president morsi and the muslim brotherhood had been