Karzai's Not-So-Crazy End Game; U.S. Ambassador to Russia Resigns
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: This is GPS, the Global Public Square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria. We have a terrific show for you today starting with Sochi. I will talk live with Michael McFaul, the outspoken U.S. Ambassador to Russia who has just announced his resignation. We'll talk about the games, the security threats and, of course, the mastermind behind it all, Vladimir Putin. Then, a seasoned investor warns of the event everyone is worried about, the great fall of China, or the Chinese economy, something that will slow growth across the world. Also, the Tiger Mom is back. She tells us why some ethnic groups succeed much more than others. Racism or research? We'll talk it over. Then, technology seems to be moving ahead at warp speed, self- driving cars, computers playing chess and more, but where are the jobs? Two MIT experts explain the paradox. And, Syria is a calamity, Egypt is a mess, but I will bring you one bright spot in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. But, first, here's my take: Is Hamid Karzai crazy? That's what many Americans thing and on the face of it, the Afghan President has said lots of odd, inflammatory and contradictory things. Over the past year, he has wondered whether the American presence in Afghanistan has done any good at all, refused to sign an Afghan- U.S. security pact and called members of the Taliban his brothers. This week the New York Times revealed that he has been conducting secret negotiations with the Taliban. What can he be thinking? Well, maybe Karzai is looking at what happened to one of his predecessors. In 1989, the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan. The President it had backed, Mohammad Najibullah, stayed in power, but within months a civil war broke out, forcing him eventually to seek refuge in a U.N. compound. In 1996 the Taliban rode into Kabul, captured Najibullah, denounced him as a foreign puppet, castrated him, dragged his body through the streets and then hung him from a traffic light. For good measure, they did the same to his brother. Now, there are many important differences between the past and present, but Karzai is probably looking at the evolving geopolitical landscape. The U.S. has tired of its longest war, debating only the size of the small force it will leave behind, mostly for training purposes. The Taliban continue to have many strongholds in significant parts of the country. Pakistan continues to support the Taliban from across the border support that is likely to expand as America withdraws and Islamabad seeks to fill that power vacuum. So Karzai might be playing an erratic game of brinkmanship in his negotiations with Washington, but he might also be trying to navigate a post-American Afghanistan. While American troops might well remain and some American aid will continue, Afghanistan is going to look very different in 2015 than it does today. Consider these facts from a highly intelligent forthcoming book, "War Front to Store Front," by Paul Brinkley: In 2009, Afghanistan had a nominal GDP of $10 billion. Of that number, 60 percent was foreign aid, 30 percent was the cultivation of poppy and the production of raw heroin, all of which is informal and underground. So that leaves 10 percent of the economy, $1 billion, of self- sustaining, legitimate economic activity. During the same year, the United States military spent $4 billion per month to protect a country with a real annual economic output of $1 billion. "Kabul is a metaphor for the country," Brinkley said to me. "It is a city sized for 500,000 people. It has grown to 8 million, who have been drawn to the city by the massive influx of foreign money, military and nonmilitary. But that money is going to slow down very significantly soon. What happens then?" he asks. Brinkley worked for the Pentagon to start up build companies in Iraq and Afghanistan, fascinating experiences he recounts in the book, and he came to the conclusion that the single most important task in both countries was to create a self-sustaining economy, which the U.S. paid little attention to. He is pessimistic about Afghanistan's prospects, and he said the national mood there is worsening. "Imagine living in a nation," he writes, "In which your national government was totally dependent on charitable donations from other countries. "Would you respect that government? Would you not assume they were puppets of the international donors who were propping up the government?" Hamid Karzai might be pondering just these questions as he plans his next crazy outburst. For more, go to cnn.com/fareed and read my Time column this week. And let's get started. Joining me now, live from Sochi, Russia, is Michael McFaul, the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, who on Tuesday announced he will be leaving his post to return to Stanford University. Over his more than two-year tenure in Moscow, McFaul has, at times, been deeply critical of the Putin administration. In return, he's been accused by the Kremlin of arrogance and undiplomatic behavior and he's been hounded by pro-regime media outlets. McFaul is in Sochi as part of President Obama's official delegation. Welcome, Mike. Let me ask you, do you think at the end of the day it was a mistake ...</s>MICHAEL MCFAUL, UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA: Thanks, Fareed.</s>ZAKARIA: It was a mistake to hold the games in Sochi? This is essentially a war zone, or very close -- perilously close to a war zone and Russia could have held the games anywhere. This is literally the southernmost part of Russia. Was this a mistake?</s>MCFAUL: Well, that decision was taken long before my time in government. Whether it's a mistake or not is for others to judge. I do know that we've been working closely with the Russian government for the last two years, since I've been here, in preparation for these games. Our focus, number one, of course, is security. As of today, we have about 150 people from the embassy and from the United States here working closely with the Russian to focus so that we have a safe and secure games. Mike, when you look at whether it's Syria, the Magnitsky Law, Snowden, American adoptions, it feels like Russian-American relations are in bad shape and that the reset really hasn't worked. Why are they so adversarial?</s>MCFAUL: Well, I wouldn't put it that way, Fareed. I would say we did reset relations five years ago with just a basic premise that if we engage with the Russians, we do have some common interests and, through cooperation, it can be good for Russia, good for the United States. And when you think about our national security interests, whether it's Afghanistan, Iran, chemical weapons in Syria, trade and investment issues or reducing nuclear weapons in the world, those are all areas where we cooperation with the Russians.</s>ZAKARIA: But let me ...</s>MCFAUL: Now, it doesn't mean we don't have our disagreements and the list -- go ahead.</s>ZAKARIA: Let's take a look at one of those. In an interview last week with Kommersant you said that one of your two failures that you admitted to was that you couldn't get the Russian media, particularly I think the pro-regime media, to stop fomenting the rumor that the United States and Washington were trying to foment regime change in Moscow. But Henry Kissinger, on this program recently, said that he thought on Ukraine, Washington should be much more or at least more sensitive to Russia's interest and its concerns. And he said, "Putin is probably assuming that we in Washington think that Kiev is a dress rehearsal for Moscow." Was that a fair -- Is that fair that we should be more concerned about Russia's interests?</s>MCFAUL: My job here is to explain our policy and to be as transparent as possible about our support for civil society, about our engagement with regimes around the world, but most certainly Russia. To say I failed, I said that, is because if I look at public opinion polls, most Russians still believe that we're seeking to foment regime change in Russia. Having said that, I'm glad you added regime-oriented media because there is a real debate in this country and if over the spread of the country, that may be still the case, when asked to evaluate my work in Russia, 91 percent of those polled on a liberal outlet, Echo Moskvy, approved, only 9 percent disapproved. So, in that respect, I think we've made some progress in trying to explain two the Russian government and to the Russian people exactly what we do and don't do with respect to support for civil society, democracy and human rights. Transparency is our policy.</s>ZAKARIA: Do you believe that the Russian government leaks the phone conversation between Victoria Nuland, the State Department official, who said, "F the European Union" with regard to their passivity on Ukraine?</s>MCFAUL: Well, I haven't seen any confirmation that it came from the Russians. I've been down here in Sochi during this period. I can say that the Russian government does have tremendous capacity when it comes to listening to conversations. I've had one of mine put on the web before when I was -- a couple years ago and most certainly we respect their capacities. We don't respect what I consider, if it's true, to be a real breach of diplomacy. That's just not the way we do business between countries.</s>ZAKARIA: Mike, before you were a diplomat, you wrote an article in Foreign Affairs in 2008. It was a very tough piece on Putin's Russia, really tough. Now, is it easy to understand, in that context, why the Putin government and why Putin himself probably mistrusts you?</s>MCFAUL: I don't want to make it about me personally. I think my record as an advisor to President Obama, which really goes back seven years, not just the five years. I've been with the government for five, but with him for seven. We have developed a very, you know, clear strategy for how to engage with Russia. We've achieved a lot through cooperation and mutual respect. And I would hope that President Putin understands that in the same why that I wrote that Foreign Affairs piece, I also was part and, you know, an intimate player in developing that strategy which I think has made Russia better off and the United States better off.</s>ZAKARIA: Thirty seconds, Mike. Did Putin say anything to you in what was your, what I assume would be your last meeting with him?</s>MCFAUL: I haven't seen him yet. I'm sure -- I've exchanged conversations about these very issues with him personally and I hope I get to see him before I leave Russia to thank him. I've had a fantastic time here as a U.S. ambassador. It's been -- I'm very proud to represent my country here.</s>ZAKARIA: Michael McFaul, thank you so much for joining us. We look forward to hearing from you when you're back at Stanford. Lots more ahead on the show including a dire warning about China. One very prominent forecaster says the world's second biggest economy is going to have a sharp slowdown and he has data to prove it.