Fareed Zakaria Interview…
The New York Observer’s Felix Gillette interviews CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.
Mr. Zakaria’s hour-long GPS (which “stands for” Global Public Square) kicked off in the summer of 2008. From the get-go, unlike most Sunday public affairs programs such as Meet the Press and This Week, GPS set out to lure political leaders and thinkers onto the show from outside the Beltway and outside America. Part of Mr. Zakaria’s booking pitch to world leaders has been to emphasize his reach: U.S. policy makers in Washington and New York as well as viewers in London and Moscow and New Delhi—even in Kabul.
On the first episode, Mr. Zakaria interviewed Tony Blair, the former British prime minister. Since then, he has racked up exclusives with a number of foreign heads of state, including Wen Jiabao, the elusive premier of China; Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian minister of foreign affairs; and Rania Al-Yassin, the queen of Jordan.
Mr. Zakaria’s exclusive with Mr. Karzai came at a crucial time in U.S.-Afghanistan relations. By all accounts, the war in Afghanistan is not going well. Reports of governmental corruption are widespread, the Taliban is resurgent and President Obama is currently working on a strategic review of U.S. operations in the region.
With elections in Afghanistan set to take place later this year, Mr. Karzai’s continued central role in the reshaping of the country is by no means guaranteed. (In a recent interview with the Afghan TV network Tolo, Mr. Obama’s special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, declined to endorse Mr. Karzai.) All of which paved the road for the appearance on GPS.
“I think he felt under attack,” Mr. Zakaria told The Observer in the aftermath of the interview. “And he felt this would be a chance to defend himself on charges of corruption.“This is a government that couldn’t be sustained without American military, economic and political support at every level,” Mr. Zakaria added. “I think Karzai is a very shrewd politician in understanding it’s not just three people in Washington that he needs. He needs a fairly broad basis of support. So he’s making his case to the American public.”
