Enrique Cerna Interviews International Relations Specialist Fareed Zakaria

This is a transcript of an interview with Fareed Zakaria on Conversations at KCTS 9 which aired on August 8, 2008.

EC: Fareed Zakaria, welcome, welcome back to Seattle. I know that this is a place that you’ve been to numerous times. Because this is a place that reads books.

FZ: It’s a place that reads books, but I also have many friends here. No, I love Seattle, I love Seattle.

EC: Let’s talk first about, Fareed Zakaria, where he was born, also how that may have molded what you do today. You are a native of India.

FZ: I grew up in Bombay, and now Mumbai India, grew up there in the 60’s and 70’s and it was sort of an interesting time, now, if you’d look back at India because it was much more stable, much poorer as a country, but with a lot less churn. Much less churning. It was also just, one generation removed from British rule. My father was a politician, he had been involved with what was called the freedom struggle—the struggle to make India independent of the British reg. My mother was a journalist. So I grew up in a house that was kinda of full of political argument and activity and, you know, conversations about what to put on the cover of magazines, and in an odd way, you know, my father is a political figure, my mother is a journalist, and I feel like I’m still in the intersection of those worlds.

EC: I was reading about you and you were described as a junior Henry Kissinger and you were also described as a neo-con.

FZ: When I came to America, I would say that it’s fair to say that I was conservative, because part of it was I grew up in India. And you know, socialist economy, with all this sort of nonsensical non-alignment, a lot of the bombasity of kind of the third world of the 60’s and 70’s, I kind of had it up to here with that. And so I came to America, and I saw in Ronald Regan, someone who was very honest about the genuine evil of the Soviet Union, which I did believe it was true, it was a very repressive economic political social system. And understood that these kind of planned economies don’t work; that socialism doesn’t work. So it was kind of the feeling, that yes, this is the right answer. And I think that over time, I sort of mellowed. I think that part of what happened was that I may have moved more to the center, I also think that the right in America moved very far right, so that Ronald Regan I think today would actually be considered a political moderate, I mean the guy raised taxes six times, dealt with the Soviet Union, dealt with the…you know all the regimes in the world that he regarded as adversaries. So I think it was a combination of factors that took place, and I also think that that the world has changed, you know when I was in favor of lower taxes, marginal tax rates were 75%--they’re now 35%, it’s a different world. And I think one has to keep that in mind as you ask yourself, what do you want.

EC: you grew up Muslim?

FZ: Yup.

EC: How did that play in your life?

FZ: Well my father was a politician, both my parents were observant, but they were very secular. We celebrated, my father was great Indian nationalist, and India is a very diverse country and he very much believed in observing and honoring other holy days, of other faiths. So we actually celebrated Christmas, we celebrated all the Hindu festivals as well. So I grew up with that very ecumenical broad, secular background. And I think that in a sense, I always recognized that religion, at least in my family was a matter about what gave you personal inspiration, what gave you a sense of sustenance and things like that. And that sense has always stayed with me very strongly. That this is not something that should be used to organize public life in someway, to organize politics, to organize even social relations. I tend to think, I’m…it doesn’t play a very large part in my public life in any sense.

EC: Did you intend to become a journalist?

FZ: No. No, I don’t know what I intended to do. I was one of these people who went to college and you know, got a liberal arts education because that was what I was interested in. I actually came to college and took science courses, because that’s what smart Indian kids did. I mean you were supposed to be an engineer. I mean I took computer science and physics and math, and I took one history course—that first year, and I thought to myself at the end of that first year, that’s the course that I really loved, why am I taking all this science stuff, and so I flipped and basically became a humanities major. I didn’t know what I was going to do, I went to graduate school largely to postpone the decision, and I knew I didn’t want to go to law school that sounded boring. And after, while I was getting done with graduate school, somebody offered me a job in journalism. And I thought to myself, “I don’t know that that’s what I want to do” but I look back on every summer I had worked, in the previous 8 years, and I realized I had worked mostly in magazines and newspapers. So I thought to myself, I guess there must be something to this, why am I doing this, if I am…so it was a very unconscious process and then I did it, and initially I was working at a magazine called Foreign Affairs, a very academic journal, and I thought this is sort of a half way house between academia and journalism, so I’m not really a journalist, so I’m not really a journalist. And then I went to Newsweek and now I’m doing Newsweek and a television show, so I think I’m definitely a journalist.

EC: 9/11 obviously affected all of us in the country and people around the world. And in many ways, with what you’re doing, you became really this interpreter of the world for us, in understanding what might have happened, what drove those people to hijack those airplanes and fly them into the World Trade Center towers—what’s the mindset of a guy like Osama Bin Laden and all of these things? It has really changed your life.

FZ: It did. Two things I think happened. One, is that with 9/11 what happened was Americans suddenly realized is that what happens out there, affects us here. That it was possible for them to make that visceral connection and so, in the years before 9/11, I was writing a foreign affairs column for Newsweek, but you know you always felt like you were getting a niche reader, you were getting part of the Newsweek audience, you were getting part... that this was considered something that maybe people who traveled a little bit more, or who were in someway interested in the world would read, but not the average reader. 9/11 changes that. And then secondly there was this intense focus and interest in this area of the world and this religion and in a sense, the third world in general, you know, who are all these poor dark brown people and why do they hate us. And so two weeks after 9/11, I wrote a cover story called Why They Hate Us, I actually wrote it in 2 and half days it was 8000 words. And I tried to lay out for people just how this phenomenon of Arab radicalism and Arab/Islamic terrorism had arisen. And it really was written in a white heat, I mean I just tried to put down exactly how I thought it was. And it somehow resonated, because it became just probably one of the most widely circulated, widely reprinted essays in the last 2 or 3 decades by many peoples accounting, you know, not mine. And yah it did place me in this sort of public position all of a sudden, and you know, I mean I was going around then doing shows like The View, which never had a foreign policy analyst on in the history. Because people were trying to figure out, “why do they hate us?”

EC: As a Muslim, in finding out who the people were on the planes, how did that affect you?

FZ: I didn’t surprise me; you know when I heard about what was happening, look, I’d been following this stuff for a while. I thought to myself instantly, this must be Osama bin Laden. But, I think, still at an intellectual level it didn’t surprise me, at a visceral level it surprised me and it unsettled me, because I thought to myself, boy, these chickens have come home to roost in the sense that this problem out there has come here. This problem, that was sort of something…that we were swatting the flies in Tanzania and in Yemen and all of a sudden, its here, and we have to confront it and we have to ask ourselves what to do about it and in the midst of all of it we have a country that doesn’t know a lot about these people, these cultures, how are they going to react, how are they going to react to the fact that I have a Muslim name, how are they going to react to the fact that my son has a muslin name things like that. And you know, I have enormous amount of faith in this country and at the end of the day, that optimism kept me going, but I’d be kidding if I didn’t say I wasn’t nervous. And then things got even more complicated because after I wrote a couple of pieces, including the why do they hate us, some of the fundamentalist groups, the Islamic fundamentalist groups, viewed me as being very critical of Islamic fundamentalism, which I was. And so a mosque in London, one of these fiery mullahs, issued a fatwa against me.

EC: I didn’t know this.

FZ: I’ve only recently been willing to talk about it. And so then I had to have my mail put into Tupperware containers, and you…

EC: And a fatwa is really for the most part…

FZ: It’s a death sentence. It’s telling people that it’s ok to go out and kill this guy. And so that was unsettling. I was a little rattled. I called up a friend of mine, a very senior person in the US Government who deals with these kind of things, and he was actually reassuring in an odd way, and he said to me, after awhile he said, look, you should take these precautions, you should definitely have your mailed screened, you should do a few other things that they told me do, my phone was unlisted things like that. And he said, but you know, at the end of the day, just keep in mind Fareed, they issue two fatwa’s everyday, your not that important.

EC: Well lets talk about your latest book The Post American World, because what I wonder is, seven years later after 9/11, have we as Americans made the effort to try to understand those in the other parts of the world and realize that globalization is hitting hard?

FZ: I don’t think that we’ve really come to realize that; we’ve gotten interested in the parts of the world that are dysfunctional enough to want to kill us. So were quite interested in Iraq and Afghanistan and somewhat interested in Pakistan. But it hasn’t produced that broad interest in the rest of the world that I was hoping it would. And this book is really a product of this very urgent feeling that we need to understand that the world is changing very fast and its changing very dramatically. I mean, what I was struck by, and this came to me from travel and from observation—it was not something I knew—I learned it while I was going around the world. Just to see the incredible dynamism and energy around the world and see these countries—you know from the Dominican Republic to Chile to Costa Rica, to South Africa to Turkey—all of Asia, growing, booming with political confidence to realize—you know, we really don’t get this. We don’t know what’s going on around the world.

EC: And you would think that we would change, after what happened?

FZ: You think, you know, you think we would have learned a lesson—that look, don’t ignore what’s going on in the rest of the world, don’t ignore these trends. They all come back; they all have an effect here. But somehow, you know, we’re a big country, we’re bordered by two vast oceans, by benign neighbors, it just comes very hard for us to be engaged in the world and that kind of permanent sense. I think what we sort of want to do is reform the world, bob it on the head, and come back home. You know, we want to do something that’s quick and then finishes. A permanent engagement with the world is see as somehow, I don’t know, morally corrupting.

EC: Well, that interesting that you say that because, as we are in the midst of this presidential campaign, already—George Bush, when he went to the conneset in Israel and made the comment about appeasement, appeasement of terrorist, it seemed to be a veiled slam at Barrack Obama. Yet, the presidential candidates are saying…we need to be more open, so they’re moving away from what George Bush has been saying for the past 8 years.

FZ: It seems so, though McCain, in that particular case supported Bush. Which I was very sad to see, because not only was it strangely political statement, what I’m struck by, is it really doesn’t take into account this new world I’m talking about, in which all these other countries are becoming players in their own right; we are isolating ourselves, if we think we are not going to talk to other people. I mean if you look at what Bush himself is doing, after having called Libya a terrorist state—he negotiated with Libya. After calling North Korea part of the axis of evil, he’s negotiating with North Korea. After calling the insurgents in Iraq terrorists, were negotiating with them. You know, in all those cases, that was not his preferred strategy—his preferred strategy failed, and so he reluctantly came to the realization that…you know what? You’ve gotta deal with the world. And that’s in a way, one of the central messages of the book, which is, you know…there is a world out there that is going to move on, whether or not we take note of it—we can recognize it and deal, or its gonna move on and it will be a post American world in that sense.

EC:And that’s what you’re talking about, you’re talking about the rise of the rest…

FZ: It a rise of, you know, these countries…for so many years, for centuries, basket cases. And they’ve now, things are working. They have political stability, they have economic growth, they have low inflation, as a result they have cultural pride, they have political confidence, and it’s that kind of world that we’re moving into. And it’s really a mistake, I think, to think that we can still sit there and dictate and issue Human Rights reports and pay no attention to what they’re saying, and you know…really try and be the kind of ‘ring master’ and say that we are going to define the agenda—No they get to have their say too.

EC: But Americans have never taken to that. And American governments have never been comfortable with that, or willing to do that…so how is that going to change?

FZ: Well, I hope it changes. I’ll give you an example of the kind of thing I’m talking about: so New York has always thought, you know, were the financial capital of the world, you know…let everybody else do what they want, they’re all so screwed up it doesn’t matter—right? London has very slowly and steadily over the last 20 years, reformed itself, reformed its structures of government, made itself the best regulated financial center in the world, it is now the leading financial center in the world, by every measure that’s important and everyone that’s leading—it happened. You know and so, we were sitting around thinking we don’t need to pay any attention to them, who cares what they’re doing, they’re a bunch of Englishmen. And it happened, and similarly, I think, if you look in area after area, what’s going to happen, is we will be bypassed. Its not that…you know were stuck in a debate about Anti-Americanism: the world has moved to post-Americanism, they’re past—they’re not interested in hating us or loving us, they’re interested in making it on their own. And if we want to join in on that—great. So the cost of doing what you’re saying is very high—because we will loose out.

EC: I want to throw some Countries out to you and some names out to you. And I’d like you to give me just some brief reactions, thoughts on them. China.

FZ: The most successful case of economic development in human history. The west industrialized, the western countries, at about 2.5% economic growth per year. China grown at 10% per year, for 30 years. It just, nothing short of a miracle. 450 million people in China have moved out of poverty. Now, the regime remains politically very tight, and it has not opened up very much. But in many, many areas of life; owning property owning businesses, moving, traveling, the Chinese have opened things up. China faces a huge challenge about whether or not it can maintain this very open, increasingly open economy, with a closed political order. But the challenge we face, is, can we allow China some space in the international system that is commensurate with its increasing profile. Or, are we going to draw the line so low, that we say, “anything they do is some kind of challenge to us”?. Because that’s going to be the central question that we face in coming to us in the next 20 years. Is China integrated into this world order that we’ve created, or has it become a spoiler? If it becomes a spoiler, say goodbye to global prosperity.

EC: Iran

FZ: Iran is a serious challenge to America’s position in the Middle East. The most serious challenge in the last generation. That challenge has largely been accelerated by the disastrous occupation of Iraq. Iran is the single greatest beneficiary of the collapse of American policy in Iraq. That may change as Iraq stabilizes…but right now, in May 2008-that is the situation. It is however, not a threat on the scale of Soviet Russia or Mao’s China. Iran’s GDP as I recall is 1/40th the size of Americas GDP; its military budget is 1/100th the size of Americas military budget. It doesn’t have nuclear capacity yet, it doesn’t have intercontinental ballistic missiles. It’s a, middle size power at best. It has a nutty leader. But he’s not clearly the leader of the country. He seems to be in control of some areas, he’s not in control of the nuclear program as far as we can tell. He is not the problem, but I think that we exaggerate the importance of these people, and we give them a certain kind of influence that they don’t even have. When we turn them into these 10 feet tall Satans. I think that if we play our cards right and we out smart Mr. Ahmadinejad, by talking to the Iranians, by seeing who else is there in that political system, he’ll marginalize himself. You get them enough rope, and sometimes they hang themselves.

EC: Osama Bin Laden.

FZ: Bin Laden is clearly a very charismatic figure. Probably one of the most charismatic Arab leaders of his time. I was talking to somebody in Saudi Arabia who said to me “think about it, when you ask yourself why do we, why those among us, (and he was not one, one of them) who admire Bin Laden, look around in Saudi Arabia, who are our hero’s? These fat princes who rule the country? We don’t have any sports hero’s, we don’t have any business hero’s…so who…here’s this tall romantic figure, speaks beautiful Arabic, gave up a billion dollar fortune to live in the hills in Afghanistan to fight for something he believed in?” It’s a pretty romantic idea. It’s a kind of Robin Hood. So, I think he had that appeal. The problem is, he’s on the run. I think his organization is in much worse shape than people realize. These guys haven’t been able to do a major terrorist attack in 7 years. What little they do, is they produce video tapes now, where he desperately tries to urge others to do stuff.

EC: Iraq

FZ: Iraq is too much of the Arab world, a negative example of democracy. So, if you ask yourself “has it worked?”, I have to say, unfortunately, by that definition, it hasn’t worked. Because for much of the Arab world, they look at it and say, “this attempt by Americans to create democracy, actually created chaos, 2 ½ million refugees left. And it creates a Shiite majoritarian rule, not democracy as we would understand it. And I think that’s true right now. I hope that it will stabilize. I hope that some of this will turn and the Iraqi government will be more broadly diverse and incorporate minority rights and interests. But if you’re a Christian in Iraq, in southern Iraq particularly, if you’re a Sunni, if you’re even a Shiite that doesn’t agree with the religious parties that are ruling, it’s a pretty tough place to be.

EC: One last question, America.

FZ: America is the country that has the best hand to play in this post-American world, ironically. It is the country with the greatest economy, the most flexible, the most adaptable, the most innovative. It is the country with the most dynamic society. We’re created the first universal nation, you know, with people from all over the world who look all kinds of colors, casts and creeds. And they work together and they become Americans and they think of this is their country. It’s unique in the world. But it has a dysfunctional government, it has a dysfunctional political system and that’s the part that worries me. This is the optimistic book that I’ve written, but the pessimism is about the American political system, we don’t face insurmountable challenges, we face serious challenges. But they are challenges that the political system has to address, and right now what I see in Washington, is a kind of bubble mentality, an imperial smugness, paralysis, polarization, no sense of actually solving the problems the country faces. And if we do, end up falling, it will be because of our politics, not because of our people.

EC: Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World is your latest book, course we’ll continue to read you in Newsweek and Newsweek International, new show that will begin soon on CNN, thank you for your time.

FZ: It’s my pleasure. Thank you.