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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Interview with Hillary Clinton

Aired July 27, 2014 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FAREED ZAKARIA, 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 very special show for you this week. We will spend most of it with Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and potential future president of the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: What do we stand for and how do we intend to lead and manage?

ZAKARIA: We'll talk about the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 and its aftermath.

CLINTON: Vladimir Putin certainly indirectly bears responsibility for what happened to the shoot-down of the airline.

ZAKARIA: Israel and the Palestinians.

CLINTON: Hamas provoked Israel in order to actually cause what we are now seeing.

ZAKARIA: Iran and the extension of nuclear talks.

CLINTON: Any enrichment will trigger an arms race in the Middle East.

ZAKARIA: And on her future plans, of course.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's my take. Some of President Obama's critics have an alternative policy toward Russia that they propose. The president, they say, should call Vladimir Putin a thug. OK, but the fact is that what Putin is going to worry about these days are not American words but European actions.

The European Union is by far Russia's largest trading partner. The EU buys much of Russia's energy. It is the major investor in Russian companies and the single-largest destination for Russian capital. In fact, the Ukrainian crisis has shown a spotlight on one of the great gaps in the world right now. The lack of a strategic and purposeful Europe. Consider how Europe has dealt with Ukraine from the start. It could

not really decide whether it wanted to encourage Ukrainian membership in the EU so it sent mixed signals to Kiev which had the initial effect of disappointing pro-European Ukrainians, angering the Russians nevertheless, and confusing everyone else.

Things began to stir after Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008. In the wake of that event, the EU promised an eastern partnership to the countries along Europe's eastern fringe, including Ukraine. European leaders were now beginning to woo Ukraine, but without recognizing how this would be perceived in Russia.

The EU did eventually offer Ukraine a deal but it was a bad one. It was full of demands for reform and restructuring of Ukraine's admittedly corrupt economy but with few offers in the way of aid to soften the blows or sweeten the pot.

When then-President Yanokovych rejected Europe's offer and sided with Moscow, he set in motion a high-speed, high-stakes game that Europe was utterly unprepared for and could not respond to.

On Ukraine Europe has always been a step behind, internally conflicted and unwilling to assert itself clearly and quickly. Those same qualities have been on display ever since the shoot down of Flight 17. The your European Union still has a chance to send a much clearer signal to Ukraine, Russia and the world. It is debating sanctions this week. It could ask that Russia pressure the pro-Russia rebels in Ukraine to cooperate fully with the investigation of Flight 17.

It could ask that the Ukrainian government, which Moscow recognizes, be allowed to take control of its own territory in eastern Ukraine. It could put forward a list of specific sanctions that would be implemented, were its conditions not met within two weeks.

In addition Europe should announce longer jump plans on two fronts, first to gain greater energy independence from Russian oil and gas. European nations must also reverse a two decades-long downward spiral in defense spending that has made Europe a paper tiger in geopolitical terms.

Germany, for example, spends only around 1.5 percent of its GDP on defense, among the lowest levels in Europe, much below the United States and well under the 2 percent which is the target for all NATO members.

It's really difficult to have your voice heard and feared when you both speak softly and carry a twig. The problem is now being described by some as European cowardice and appeasement. It is better explained by an absence of coherence among 28 very different countries, a lack of strategic direction, and a parochial inward orientation that hopes the world's problems will go away.

The result, nevertheless, is a great vacuum in international life with terrible consequences. If we look back years for now and wonder why the liberal open rule-based international order weakened and eroded over the years, we might well note that a crucial problem was that the world's most powerful political and economic unit, the European Union, with a population and economy larger than America's, was the great no- show on the international stage.

For more, go to CNN.com/fareed and read my "Washington Post" column this week.

And let's get started.

Joining me now is the former first lady of the United States, the former senator from the state of New York, the former secretary of state of the United States, Hillary Clinton.

"Hard Choices" is Mrs. Clinton's recently published memoir of her time as America's 67th secretary of state.

Welcome.

CLINTON: Hello. Thank you, Fareed. I'm delighted to be here.

ZAKARIA: First, the stuff in the news.

CLINTON: Yes.

ZAKARIA: There are a lot of people who feel that President Obama is not being tough enough on Vladimir Putin, on Russia. Do you think he's handling the Ukrainian crisis appropriately?

CLINTON: Well, Fareed, I think that he is facing some of the same challenges that American presidents face when dealing with threats within Europe. The United States obviously has a great interest in helping to maintain peace and security in Europe, and we have a formal alliance, NATO, to do so. But much of what we can do and what the president is calling for requires the full participation of our European friends and allies.

And I would make three quick points. First, I think if there were any doubt, it should be gone by now that Vladimir Putin certainly indirectly, through his support of the insurgents in eastern Ukraine and the supply of advanced weapons and, frankly, the presence of Russian special forces and intelligence agents bears responsibility for what happened to the shoot-down of the airline.

Therefore, we have to up the sanctions that are required. The United States has continued to move forward on that. Europe has been reluctant. They need to understand they must stand up to Vladimir Putin.

That brings me to my second point, is that the reluctance has to do with European dependence on energy from Russia. But I would remind my European friends, as I did when I was secretary of state, and write about in my book, that they have to become more energy independent and diversify their energy supplies. Russia doesn't have yet that many markets. They are also dependent upon the European market, so I think the Europeans can go much further in sanctions, and should do so as quickly as possible. And finally, it's in the interests of Europe and the United States to

help the Ukrainians secure their borders, up the training and supplying of the Ukrainian military forces, and, of course, continue to stress the need for reform, political and economic, inside Ukraine. All of that should be done simultaneously.

ZAKARIA: You say in the book that you've felt, and you've said in interviews subsequently, that the reset with Russia worked because you got a new strategic arms treaty out of it, you got the Russians to agree to sanctions on Iran.

Why do you think then that it stopped working? What changed?

CLINTON: Well, I thought a lot about that because I was among the most skeptical of Putin during the time that I was there, in part because I thought he had never given up on his vision of bringing mother Russia back to the forefront, not by looking at what Russia could do to be a modern nation, but by looking to the past, and especially trying to control their borders from central Asia to the Baltics.

So when he announced in the fall of 2011 that he would be changing positions with Medvedev, I knew that he would be more difficult to deal with. He had been always the power behind Medvedev, but he had given Medvedev a lot of independence to do exactly what you said and make the reset a success.

I saw that firsthand with respect to the parliamentary elections in Russia because they were filled with irregularities and Russian people poured out into the streets to protest, and I, as secretary of state, said the Russians deserved better. They deserved elections that reflected their will. Putin attacked me personally because he is very worried about any kind of internal dissent so he wanted to clamp down on any opposition within Russia and he wanted to provide more influence and even intimidation on his borders.

And I, you know, certainly made my views known in -- you know, in meetings, as well as in memos to the president. I think that what may have happened is that both the united the United States and Europe were really hoping for the best from Putin as a returned president. And I think we've been quickly, unfortunately, disabused of those hopes. Putin is playing the long game. He has a strategic plan in mind, the Eurasian Union which would be in competition to Europe.

His continuing efforts to intimidate Europeans not just through energy but through interfering in elections, putting money behind buying press outlets in European countries and the like, trying to discourage countries like Ukraine being able to join the European Union.

And if the United States and Europe don't present a united front, I think Putin's the kind of man who will go as far as he can get away with. I think he is still smart enough and cautious enough to be pushed back, but there has to be a push in order to make that happen.

ZAKARIA: You have dealt with lots of strong men in your life.

(LAUGHTER)

What -- assess Putin. You write about him in the book. And there's this one moment, the only point in which he's genial towards you is when you would talk about saving tigers in Siberia. Other than that, he comes across as a pretty tough character. How does he -- I mean, so much of what people do is psychologically analyze Putin.

CLINTON: Right.

ZAKARIA: So you tell us, what is he like as a man? You've met him many times.

CLINTON: Well, he's very tough. He's a very arrogant person to deal with, which I think is a combination of this vision of Russia and some fundamental insecurity because when you are dealing with him, he often acts as though he couldn't care less, he's not interested, even talking with him about getting Russia into the World Trade Organization which is something the Obama administration was determined to do because we want to have a rules based order in so far as possible.

Proved difficult to deal with him. You know, he acts bored and dismissive. So he has a lot of personas that he pulls out if he wants to stare intently at you with his very, you know, bright blue eyes because he wants something from you or he wants to convey a message to you. He can turn on the charm. But he can also be, you know, very tough to deal with and act as though it's a burden on him to be in conversations with other world leaders.

I would be delighted if the United States could have a positive relationship with Russia and I would be thrilled if the Russian people who are so capable had a normal country that they could chart a different future. I think that will be next to impossible, at least for the short term, with Putin.

ZAKARIA: He wanted a presidential summit which you advised against and didn't happen. Do you think that part of what may have gone wrong was he felt that you dissed him?

CLINTON: No. Because here's what happened. When he was re-elected there was a G-8 summit that President Obama was hosting, which he told us he would attend, and then decided not to. Then there was a G-20 summit in Los Cabos. And the president -- our president had a meeting scheduled. He kept President Obama waiting 40 minutes before he showed up. He sat down. It was a very small meeting, you know, on both sides of the table. We at the time were very hopeful, not realistically so by idealistically so that we could get more cooperation from Russia to slow down Assad and what he was doing in Syria.

Putin could not have looked more bored, more discomfited and never apologized for being late. So then of course he wanted a summit in Russia. He wanted to play the host and my advice to the president was don't go chasing after him. I mean, we're not sure of what his real intent is. We may be back into the prior administration's problems where he invaded Georgia and never adequately responded to the legitimate concerns of the international community. They stopped, you know, the conflict, but basically tried to get people to recognize you know, these two provinces in Georgia as independent of Georgia.

I said let's wait and see what we're really doing with him, because if the president had gone to a summit where he had masterminded the photo-ops so that it looked as though President Obama was really supporting him before we really knew what he was doing, I thought that would have been a mistake.

ZAKARIA: We will be right back with much more with Hillary Clinton. Next up, the many crises in the Middle East.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: Charles Krauthammer, a conservative critic, has said the world is going to hell and President Obama is playing golf. Is he playing too much golf while all these crises are popping up?

CLINTON: No. I think that's an unfair comment to make. I know from my own experience with the president where we work so closely together, and as I write in the book, you know, went from being adversaries to partners, to friends, that he is constantly working and thinking. But he also wants to do what will make a difference, not just perform. He wants to be sure that we know what the consequences, both intended and unintended are.

When it comes to the Middle East, this is always a very difficult issue for any American president. I have said publicly -- and I believe it -- that Hamas provoked Israel in order to actually cause what we are now seeing and there are many reasons for that. I negotiated the last ceasefire in November of 2012 and I know very well how difficult it is even when at that time we had a punitive ally of Hamas with the Muslim brotherhood and Morsi in charge in Cairo.

If was still difficult and we had to work hard to end the violence of that time. And I think the president is doing what he can do to try to get a ceasefire and then see whether we can sort out some, you know, longer-term resolution.

ZAKARIA: Bibi Netanyahu. You said you had a complicated and it sounded like a difficult relationship with him.

CLINTON: Well, I have to say, I've known be a long time and I have a very good relationship with him, in part because we can yell at each other, and we do. And I was often the designated yeller. Something would happen, a new settlement announcement would come and I would call him up, what are you doing? You've got to stop this. And we understood each other because I know how hard it is to be the leader of a relatively small country that is under constant pressure and does face a lot of legitimate threats to its existence from those around it.

And I also care deeply about how Israel is able, not just to survive, but thrive, and just fundamentally disagreed with Bibi in the '90s that I was in favor of a two-state solution. I was the first person associated with any administration to say that out loud. And he did not. But then when he came back in, in 2009, he did. And I've sat with him, as you and I are sitting, and I really believe that if he thought he could get adequate security guarantees for a long enough period of time, he would be able to resolve everything with the exception of Jerusalem which is the hardest issue.

You can get borders, and if you can figure out how to do security within those borders, some of which may require having IDF and international forces in the Jordan valley, for example. Then if you could move toward a state and leave Jerusalem to be worked on, because that's the hardest issue for all sides.

ZAKARIA: But you know, he gave an interview recently to I think it was "The Times of Israel" where he said there are no circumstances under which we will ever relinquish security control of the area west of the Jordan, meaning the West Bank. That sounds like it is going back on his acceptance of the two-state solution.

CLINTON: Well, Fareed, I see that as an opening negotiating position because I had the private one-on-one conversations and the private conversations with him sitting there and Mahmoud Abbas sitting there and George Mitchell sitting there, and I know that Abbas in my conversations was willing to entertain a number of years where there could be some continuing security.

Remember, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, have a working relationship with the Palestinian Authority security forces which have been incredibly professional. We've helped to provide training, as has Jordan and others, and the positions that Netanyahu has taken. Now once they take a position -- and I know the years that Abbas has said are permitted and I know the years that Bibi has demanded -- you're in a negotiation. But if there is no process going on, which is why we can't ever leave the vacuum of no process, despite how incredibly frustrating it is -- then of course Abbas is going to say never, not under any circumstances and Bibi is going to say absolutely forever.

ZAKARIA: In 2009 you said that you wanted Israeli settlement activity to stop. In fact you were pretty blunt. You said no exceptions. You write in the book that that was a tactical mistake because it made Bibi Netanyahu get even more hard-line.

CLINTON: Right.

ZAKARIA: But Martin Indyk has just resigned as the -- you know, the kind of -- the Sherpa of the peace process and he says that the immediate trigger, in his view there were many -- but was the fact that the Palestinians looked at the Israeli continued settlement activity and said these guys are not serious, we're never going to be able to get a state, look at what they're doing.

CLINTON: This is my biggest complaint with the Israeli government. I am a strong supporter of Israel, strong supporter of their right to defend themselves. But the continuing settlements which have been denounced by successive American administrations on both sides of the aisle are clearly a terrible signal to send if at the same time you claim you're looking for a two-state solution. Now when I was negotiating and I had been able to put together three

face-to-face meetings between Netanyahu and Abbas, it was clear that if we were working off the 67 borders which was our stated position that President Obama had outlined, some of the settlements would be within any reasonable drawing of borders for Israel. But a number of them would not. And those that would not would have to be either dismantled or live under Palestinian rule.

There are deep wells of mistrust and misunderstanding on both sides. And what I've urged the Israelis to do is, do more to help the Palestinians in the West Bank right now. Don't monopolize the water. Don't make it difficult to build. So even while we're struggling over the end issues that would resolve the conflict, like borders, don't make life so miserable. You know? Because that's not any way to begin to try to deal with the mistrust.

You know, the longer I do this, Fareed, the more convinced I am that mistrust and misunderstanding are often the real fundamental obstacles to bringing people together, and that means that people from both sides of whatever divide it is, whether it is Israeli/Palestinian, you know, Russian speaking, Ukrainian speaking, whatever it might be. People have to start listening and working together to build habits of cooperation that might possibly lead to greater trust.

ZAKARIA: Perhaps even in Washington.

CLINTON: You're 100 percent right. I -- you know, I mean, I'm asked this all the time as I travel around the country. What can we do? And, you know, when you are dealing with implacable adversaries who believe their version of reality is right and yours is misguided, it's not easy. But at the same time you can't ever give up trying, And that's especially important in a democracy. Thankfully we don't have all the level of violence and conflict that we are looking at in other places in the world but we don't have enough trust and trust is the glue that holds a democracy together. And one of our biggest challenges is how do we rebuild that.

ZAKARIA: We'll be back. Hillary Clinton is my guest for the hour and when we come back, I will ask her about her vote authorizing the war in Iraq. Why does she now believe it was a mistake?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: You've said that you felt that your vote on Iraq was a mistake. What did you learn from that mistake? You know, when you look back at that whole episode.

CLINTON: Yeah.

ZAKARIA: What do you look at and say, gosh, you know, this -- going into the future, here's what I want to have learned.

CLINTON: Well, I've learned to be far more skeptical of what I'm told by presidents, no matter who the presidents are, and also to be much more cautious always in any action or vote that could lead to the use of American military power and most particularly what we call boots on the ground. With respect to that vote, I've thought a lot about it obviously over the years. I had worked closely with President Bush after the attack on 9/11. I supported his efforts to go after bin Laden and al Qaeda and, by extension, the Taliban, which were sheltering them in Afghanistan. And I, frankly, gave him too much of the benefit of the doubt. My view at the time -- and this is still true today -- is that the threat of force can often create conditions to resolve matters, and sometimes what we call coercive diplomacy is necessary. And I thought that that's what the president would do. It turned out not to be the case. And then following the invasion, the decisions that were made, everything from disbanding the military and disbanding, you know, the political structure turned out to be very ill-advised and we ended up with a dangerous situation, which then, you know, the Americans did not convince Maliki to allow a follow-on force that might have given us some ability to prevent Maliki from beginning to undermine the unity of Iraq. And so it's been ...

ZAKARIA: You don't buy the argument that Obama didn't negotiate seriously, that we could have gotten that follow-on agreement to set as ...

CLINTON: I was part of the negotiations. I supported what we were trying to convince Maliki to do, which was a small targeted follow-on force to provide what the Iraqis couldn't provide for themselves, intel, surveillance, training, and the like. And I am absolutely convinced from being in the situation room that Maliki and his larger circle did not want a continuing American presence. Now you can ask yourself why, given what has happened. And I think there are two main reasons. One, I think that Maliki and his party, which, remember, didn't win the most votes in the first election, but were able to form a government. So he had to make a lot of political deals with various segments of Iraqi political society to form that government, and there were elements within it that did not want an American follow-on force, and that was connected, in part, to the Iranians not wanting an American follow-on force. So I mean I know what we offered and I know that we tried and I know that Maliki and his inner circle did not want to go forward.

ZAKARIA: When we come back, I will ask Hillary Clinton whether there is a deal to be had with Iran on its nuclear program.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: On Iran, negotiations are complicated, but there seems to be one fundamental issue and it's boiled down to this -- the Iranians say you can have lots of inspections, we'll open up all our facilities, but we have to have the right to enrich just like every country that has a peaceful nuclear program does. The Israeli position, as I understand it, is no, zero enrichment, because any kind of enrichment gives them the capacity, the Iranians, to weaponize at some stage, perhaps (INAUDIBLE). Where do you stand?

CLINTON: Well as you know, I worked very hard and led our efforts to get the sanctions to be international that brought Iran to the negotiating table and sent one of my trusted advisors early in 2012 to begin that process of what -- how big will the table be and who gets to sit around it and the like. And I have followed what has been done since then.

This is the real nub of it. Because if you cannot be persuaded that the Iranians cannot break out and race toward a nuclear weapon, then you cannot have a deal. I believe strongly that it's really important for there to be so little enrichment or no enrichment, at least for a long period of time. Because I do think that any enrichment will trigger an arms race in the Middle East. I think if the Gulf looks and says, well, if they have any enrichment, they can do this, and then they can do that, and then we're off to the races, we've created a very dangerous situation. But if you can define that "little" in a way that you can convince our partners, not only in the Gulf, but in Israel and elsewhere that it truly is so inadequate a base that you could not move to break out, and if they were making moves toward breakout we would all know and then pursue other kinds of actions. But that's the persuasive case to be made.

ZAKARIA: You were on "The Daily Show."

CLINTON: Yes.

ZAKARIA: And Jon Stewart asked you what do you think, you know, what have you learned about American foreign policy, what's the big takeaway? And you talked about how Americans didn't tell this story well enough. And they didn't recognize that they needed to convince themselves and the world that we've been a force for good (ph).

CLINTON: Right.

ZAKARIA: So Peter Beinart writes in the "Atlantic," "Really? Is America's biggest Cold War - post-Cold war foreign policy problem that we have failed to adequately remind ourselves and others how good we are?" And his argument is actually we need a little more humility, particularly after post-Iraq and such.

CLINTON: Well, you know, obviously, I think highly of Peter. And he's a very prolific writer on many issues, but I would take this point of view. Of course, we have to be more humble and more skeptical about what we can do and what we should do. But there is a gap between how much of the world, particularly the majority of the world that is young, under 30, sees the United States and how we see ourselves. And how we see ourselves may very well fall into the mischaracterization that Peter is pointing to, that we see ourselves either as too powerful or disengaged and we may actually be having that debate in our country right now. That's not how I see it. I think that the United States has been the major force for peace, prosperity and progress in the country. Coming out of the 20th century. When we lived in a bipolar world, we made mistakes, but we had a foreign policy consensus that cut across party lines and it was easy. We were going to contain the Soviet Union, stop the march of communism. And by doing so, we didn't just rely on building up our nuclear weaponry. We relied on telling our story. That's what we did through all kinds of media.

You know, "Voice of America" is the most obvious example, but also the constant outreach that we were involved in. I remember Vaclav Havel telling me that, you know, during the depths of his struggle against the Soviet Union and it was then Czechoslovakia, it was American culture, it was - it was the music, it was the plays and theater that kept him going because it gave him an understanding of what was possible. And so that, you know, Soviet Union falls. Putin's very upset about that. We're very triumphant about that. And we're basically - great, we're done, Democracy's triumphed. This is the end of history. That was so short-sided. And now we are in this period where we have to go back out and sell ourselves. It is not to be taken for granted. What do we stand for and how do we intend to lead and manage? How do we try to enlist the rest of the world in this struggle between cooperation and order and conflict and disorder, which is really at the root of so much that's going on today. And I don't think we've done a very good job of that. Of course, there are specifics. You know, they're all the headlines we can talk about. But the trend lines -- let's not forget the trend lines. George W. Bush is very popular in Sub-Saharan Africa. Why? Because of PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief. Whether you agree or disagree with a lot of what else he did -- and I disagree with a lot of it -- I am proud to be an American when I go to Sub-Saharan Africa and people say, I want to thank President Bush and the United States for, you know, helping us fight HIV/AIDS. You know, we - we spend a lot of money and a lot of time and effort trying to be influential around the world. When I think we would be able to succeed more effectively if we were clearer about who we are and what we stand for and the values that we hold. Obviously tempered by experience and the competing interests that we face.

ZAKARIA: After a quick break, I will be back with more of Hillary Clinton. I will ask her about her toughest potential presidential match-up with Darth Vader.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: If you look at the last really 50 years, there have been three Democrats who have been elected, all outsiders. Jimmy Carter, unknown governor from Georgia. Bill Clinton, relatively obscure governor from Arkansas at the time.

(LAUGHTER)

ZAKARIA: And Barack Obama, you know, junior senator. Does that suggest that for an insider with strong Washington connections it would be tough to win the nomination and the presidency?

CLINTON: Well, I have no idea who you're talking about. But just responding hypothetically ...

ZAKARIA: A student of history.

CLINTON: Yes. Well, you know what I think, Fareed? I think every election is sui generis. I think it starts with where we are in the country at this time, with what Americans are thinking, feeling and hoping, and it proceeds from there. And it is always about the future. So whether you've been in office a day or you you've been in office 20 years, you have to come to any campaign with as clear an understanding as you can get of where the country is and where you wish it to be. Because as I say in the book, the questions for somebody running for president are not, you know, will you run and can you win. I mean that's for the political, you know, horse traders, so to speak, to opine about. It's what's your vision of America and can you lead us there. I think that we perhaps go through periods where what we want and what we need is a vision that people can hang on to. But it needs to be rooted in the hard work of getting anything done in Washington. And I think the next election will be based around the economy, around people's standard of living, around what's happening to the middle class in America and whoever runs is going to have to speak candidly and come up with a set of recommendations that the American people believe would be in their interests so that you have an election, not about a candidate, but you have an election about an agenda.

ZAKARIA: The final question and then we are done. What do you make of the fact that Darth Vader is polling ahead of every potential presidential candidate?

(LAUGHTER)

ZAKARIA: What's the deeper meaning of this?

CLINTON: Oh, I think the deeper meaning is that people love fantasies and sometimes when we're so frustrated with the gridlock in Washington, we would like some Deus ex machina figure -- Darth would not be my choice. But, you know, somebody of perhaps a slightly more positive attitude in his presentation, to come in and just fix it. You know, we just get sick of it. But that's the price of democracy. It is sometimes what people say to me, like, oh, you know, look at the difference between India and China. And, you know, China this top- down, very clear, orderly approach toward economic development, and India this massive subcontinent with all these different people speaking all these different languages. Well, each in their own way is a triumph. India is a triumph of a unified political nation and China has been triumphant in moving people out of poverty. But in the long run, who has the better system? And if India can now get its act together on the economy, it would be an extraordinary accomplishment because it would be both politically and economically successful. So I know what - and people get frustrated and people are just so fed up with the gridlock and dysfunction in Washington, the Congress is just so, unfortunately, unable to even agree on the most obvious kinds of matters. That I think, you know, Darth Vader looks pretty good to a lot of people.

(LAUGHTER)

ZAKARIA: Hillary Clinton, pleasure to have you on.

CLINTON: Thank you, Fareed, good to be here. Thank you very much.

ZAKARIA: Thank you. And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: While the world has been watching the fighting in Israel and Gaza and reading about the Israeli armed forces, I thought it's worth noting that, unlike America's volunteer force, Israel has compulsory military service which brings me to my question of the week. Which of the following countries most recently did away with mandatory military service? Brazil, Finland, Germany, or Mexico? Stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer.

This week's book of the week is "First Person," an astonishingly frank self-portrait by Russia's president. If you've heard lots about Putin in recent months and weeks and wondered what would he say in response, what does he think, this is about as close as you'll get. It's the product of six interviews with Russian journalists and Vladimir Putin. It is a revealing picture of his world view.

And now for the last look. Since life on Earth is so tumultuous these days, I think we could all use a little extraterrestrial beauty. Last week a Japanese artist teamed up with the company J.P. Aerospace and launched a pine bonsai tree and a bouquet of more than 30 types of flowers into the stratosphere. Literally. The images are stunning. The plants were placed in devices attached to helium balloons which rose roughly 90,000 feet before returning to earth after the balloons burst. The devices which had parachutes were discovered five miles from the launch site. The bonsai and the flowers, however, were never found. Another mystery of the universe.

ZAKARIA: The correct answer to our GPS Challenge question was, C, Germany switched to an all-volunteer army in 2011 and also scaled back the size of its force at the same time. All three of the other countries in the quiz still have some form of compulsory military service.

Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.