Inside the Long Road to the Iran Nuclear Deal; Previewing 'The Legacy of Barack Obama'.
ZAKARIA: OK, please set your DVR or send yourself a Meeting Maker or write it in your calendar, whatever you need to do. On Wednesday night, December 7 at 9 p.m. Eastern, CNN will premiere my new documentary. It is a two-hour program called "THE LEGACY OF BARACK OBAMA." I'll take you through the big bets that Obama took on many, many issues, many of which were successful, many of which could unravel entirely on January 20th when President Trump moves into the White House. I will give you two exclusive sneak peeks. First, one of the bets that paid off and now seems to be in grave danger, the nuclear deal with Iran. How did America get there? Take a look.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR AND DEBATE MODERATOR: Good evening, and welcome. And thank you very much.</s>ZAKARIA (voice over): It was the answer heard around the world.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would.</s>ZAKARIA: Then-Senator Obama had been thrown an unexpected question from an ordinary American.</s>COOPER: This is the CNN YouTube debate.</s>ZAKARIA: Would he meet, without preconditions, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?</s>OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them, which has been...</s>COOPER: Thanks very much, everyone. Good night.</s>ZAKARIA: Viewed today, the statement might not seem extraordinary, but in 2007, it was practically revolutionary to say that an American president would speak to strong men like Iran's Ahmadinejad and North Korea's Kim...</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... constitute an axis of evil.</s>ZAKARIA: ... two-thirds of then-President Bush's axis of evil.</s>HILLARY CLINTON, THEN-SECRETARY OF STATE: Certainly we're not going to just have our president meet with...</s>ZAKARIA: Hillary Clinton poked holes in Obama's argument on stage that night, and the reviews were pretty unanimous. Obama's answer was naive.</s>FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY, R-MASS.: Are you kidding me? Those are the last people I'd meet with in my first year. I'd never meet with those guys.</s>ZAKARIA: But Obama strategist David Axelrod says that the future president was adamant on a phone call with staff. Obama told them...</s>DAVID AXELROD, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: We're not backing off at all. I actually think that was the moment when he found his voice in that campaign because he realized that he was bringing a point of view that nobody else was going to bring.</s>ZAKARIA: That voice continued when he was inaugurated.</s>OBAMA: We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.</s>ZAKARIA: Iran in 2009 was a nation with a very tightly clenched fist.</s>OBAMA: This is a country that had been hostile towards us and we had been hostile towards for decades.</s>ZAKARIA: But after just two months in office, Obama decided to try something new on this old enemy.</s>OBAMA: Today I want to extend my very best wishes to all who are celebrating Nowruz around the world.</s>ZAKARIA: Nowruz is the Persian new year.</s>OBAMA: For nearly three decades, relations between our nations have been strained. But at this holiday we are reminded of the common humanity that binds us together.</s>ZAKARIA: Veteran Middle East reporter Robin Wright was in Iran when Obama's message was delivered.</s>ROBIN WRIGHT, REPORTER: It was electrifying, the impact it had on people who believed that, for the first time, maybe the Americans were really serious about a dialogue.</s>ZAKARIA: Those hopes for a dialogue became fears about a confrontation just six months later.</s>OBAMA: Good morning.</s>ZAKARIA: Obama, along with France's Nicolas Sarkozy and the U.K.'s Gordon Brown, made a stunning announcement. Iran had been keeping an explosive secret.</s>OBAMA: The Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years.</s>WRIGHT: This was one of those "gotcha" moments. And it was a worrying sign because it indicated Iran had a much more advanced program.</s>ZAKARIA: The crisis had an upside. It brought the world's most powerful nations together. The United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and China and Russia were now all determined to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. There were fits and starts, talks and negotiations, but little progress to show until 2013, an auspicious year, the year the team that would crack the toughest issue in world politics all came together.</s>OBAMA: ... so help me God.</s>ZAKARIA: It was the year that President Obama was inaugurated for the second time.</s>REPORTER: ... your thoughts at this point?</s>ZAKARIA: And John Kerry, a Vietnam war vet and advocate of diplomacy, took office as the new secretary of state. It was the year that the relatively moderate Hassan Rouhani was elected the seventh president of Iran...</s>HASSAN ROUHANI, PRESIDENT OF IRAN: We are all endowed with free will.</s>ZAKARIA: ... and named the American-educated Mohammad Javad Zarif as Kerry's counterpart.</s>WRIGHT: The credentials, the personal history of these four men was pivotal in pulling it off. It is doubtful that, if any of the four had been different, that we really would have gotten to this point.</s>ZAKARIA: The importance of that chemistry began to be clear in September 2013. It was the annual meeting of world leaders at the United Nations in New York. Secretary of State John Kerry.</s>SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: The United States and Iran had not had their secretaries of state or foreign ministers talk in decades.</s>ZAKARIA: But that was soon to change. After a multilateral meeting where Kerry and Zarif sat next to each other, the two diplomats went to another room at the U.N. for what was supposed to be just a meet and greet.</s>KERRY: A little room on the side of the Security Council, no windows, you know, just the two of us in a very small space, I think taking stock of each other and of the situation.</s>ZAKARIA: It turned into much more.</s>KERRY: I have just met with him now on a side meeting.</s>ZARIF: We stressed on the need to continue these discussions, to give it the political impetus that it requires.</s>ZAKARIA: These were the highest-level talks between the United States and Iran in decades. But that record didn't last long.</s>JUDY WOODRUFF, PBS ANCHOR: ... the highest-level conversation between the two nations since 1979.</s>ZAKARIA: An historic conversation, as Obama picked up the phone and called Rouhani, the first dialogue between an American president and an Iranian leader since Jimmy Carter spoke to the last Shah of Iran.</s>OBAMA: I believe we can reach a comprehensive solution.</s>ZAKARIA: President Obama was right. Iran and the world powers did reach a comprehensive solution, but the road there was filled with twists and turns and much controversy in Iran, in the United States and around the world. On Wednesday night at 9 p.m. Eastern we will take you all the way to the finish line. The deal has now been in effect for almost a year, but it seems to be in jeopardy, if you believe the promises of President-elect Donald J. Trump. What would it mean for the world if the United States pulled out of the deal? Tune in Wednesday night. Next on GPS, more from the special, including a conversation between a then-little-known senator from Illinois and a very well-known senator from Massachusetts, the chat that will go down in history. Back in a moment.