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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Interview With Award-Winning Journalist Barkha Dutt; Interview With Veteran War Correspondent Scott Anderson. Israel's Security Cabinet Approves Gaza City Takeover Plan; The "Day After" in Gaza; Hope for a Two-State Solution; The Mood in India Souring on America. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired August 10, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:46]

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria coming to you live from New York.

Today on the program, as many governments around the world clamor for an end to Israel's war in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu's government opts to expand the fight instead. I'll talk with Bret Stephens of "The New York Times" and Harvard University's Tarek Masoud about what this will mean for the people of Gaza, the surviving hostages and Israel's future.

Also, Trump's tariffs on India may fly as high as 50 percent by the end of the month. That is the president's highest level of levies across the globe. Whatever happened to the strategic alliance between Washington and Delhi?

And America's problems with Iran can be traced back to the Iranian Revolution. Did Washington make mistakes then that still shape that relationship today?

But first, here's "My Take." As a horrified world watches the upending of an economic order that has brought its stability and prosperity for decades, the question I hear in country after country is the same. Why is the United States, the country that has prospered so mightily under the system, tearing it down?

When I explained that many Americans, including the president, believe that America has been the victim of this free trade system, the response is bewilderment. How can you not see what is blindingly obvious, one senior foreign official said to me, that you are the big winner.

Donald Trump and the MAGA movement have shaped this narrative with great success. Even those who oppose Trump tend to concede that while the richest Americans and the biggest companies have succeeded in recent decades, most Americans have seen incomes stagnate, jobs get shipped overseas, and standards of living decline.

None of this tells the right story. Massive changes in public policy that are transforming the world are being made based on a series of assumptions that are anecdotes, exaggerations and lies.

The basic number to keep in mind is median income. Average income is less revealing because Elon Musk's, Bill Gates's, and Jeff Bezos's incomes raised that average. Median income is the income of the American in the middle of the income distribution. Half the country makes more, half makes less. The OECD's measure of median disposable household income in America was higher than all but one advanced industrial economy as of 2021, higher than Switzerland, Germany, Britain and Japan. The exception, by the way, is tiny Luxembourg.

In fact, America's median income is around double that of Japan. And as Noah Smith points out in an excellent essay, America's median incomes have not been stagnant as the conventional wisdom tells us. They've been growing briskly over the decades. Smith notes that real median personal income has risen by 50 percent since the 1970s. Hourly wages, again adjusting for inflation, are up substantially since the 1990s, and the hourly wages of the bottom third of Americans are up by even more, over 40 percent since then.

There have no doubt been disruptions over these last decades. That's the nature of capitalism. David Autor and others have described a China shock in which around two million jobs were lost as a result of China's rise in manufacturing prowess. Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent inflated that number to 3.7 million recently. An essay for the conservative think tank AEI contests that number entirely and cast doubt even on the lower numbers in orders research.

But the main point to remember is that the churn in the American labor market is huge. These days, on average, about 30 million Americans in the private sector lose their jobs annually, and a similar number gain jobs every year.

[10:05:00]

During the years of the China shock, the U.S. actually gained over two million jobs net. And these were not low-paying jobs in fast food.

Look at Flint, Michigan, and Greensboro, North Carolina, often seen as classic towns that were devastated by the loss of manufacturing. Over the last two and a half decades, real wage growth for the poorest is up more than 40 percent in Flint and over 26 percent in Greensboro. These are not anecdotes.

The Brookings Institution in 2018 looked at 185 urban counties that had lots of manufacturing jobs in 1970 and discovered that 115 had managed to transition from manufacturing, improving their well-being. Only 14 counties could still be defined as vulnerable. Remember, unemployment in the U.S. has been close to a 50-year low for more than three years now.

In an economy as large and diverse as the U.S., there will always be places that are struggling. Part of what makes this a more pressing problem is that Americans now rarely move from places where the economy has collapsed in search of better prospects. As Yoni Applebaum notes in his book "Stuck," Americans used to be highly mobile, always searching for better opportunities. But in recent decades they have stayed put, hoping that better economic prospects would come to them.

Applebaum notes a striking statistic about the 2016 race. Among white voters who had moved more than two hours from their hometown, Hillary Clinton enjoyed a solid six-point lead. Those living within a two-hour drive, though, backed Trump by nine points, and those who had never left their hometowns supported Trump by a remarkable 26 points.

These numbers paint a different picture of the nature of America's political turmoil. Change and disruption caused by capitalism or globalization or technology, or, crucially, a changing culture have produced enormous anxiety among many. There are those who find these anxieties unbearable and want the world to return to what it once was. But with or without tariffs, that won't happen.

Go to CNN.com/Fareed for a link to my "Washington Post" column this week. And let's get started.

This week Israel moved to dramatically expand its war on Hamas when its Security Cabinet approved plans to fully take control of Gaza City. This could involve the forced evacuation of nearly half of Gaza's population. The plan has set off a wave of outrage in Israel and internationally.

To unpack all of this, I'm joined by an expert panel. Bret Stephens is "The New York Times" opinion columnist, and Tarek Masoud is a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Bret, you say that there is a path to achieving what clearly Netanyahu's government has wanted, which is a kind of decisive victory over Hamas. But it's different from a full takeover of Gaza. Explain what you mean and why you think it will work?

BRET STEPHENS, OPINION COLUMNIST, NEW YORK TIMES: Well, there are no guarantees in anything, certainly not in wars. But I think there's a better way forward for the Israeli government than what Netanyahu appears to be proposing. Bear in mind he's given himself a lot of time, so this may be a negotiating tactic, which is essentially to withdraw to the inner perimeter of Gaza, flood the zone when it comes to food and medicine, deprive Hamas of anything it needs to carry on its war-making capabilities, and then let a combination of time, diplomatic pressure, Israeli military incursions to wear Hamas out without the incredible cost and loss that an occupation of the remainder of Gaza would entail, obviously, for the Gazans themselves, but also for Israelis.

Israel wants its 20 hostages back. All kinds of diplomatic pressure needs to be brought to bear to make that happen, especially on Turkey, Hamas's main patron in the Middle East today. But the idea of moving another 100,000 troops or 50,000 troops into Gaza is going to lead to a terrible loss of life, more suffering, more isolation for the Israelis. I think it's a mistake. And I think actually, Bibi, Prime Minister Netanyahu knows this, which is why he's given himself a considerable time window. I think this is as much a negotiating strategy as it is a military strategy.

[10:10:01] ZAKARIA: But the fundamental goal seems to be like the defeat or the, you know, to get Hamas to surrender. Is that -- what do you think of this?

TAREK MASOUD, PROFESSOR OF DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNANCE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: So, look, I mean, there's something about Bibi's plan, which I agree entirely with Bret, that it is solely a recipe for more death and destruction. But there's something about it that at least is an improvement on the status quo, which is that Israel is finally -- would be finally admitting that it already controls Gaza.

You know, in Bret's proposal, which is, you know, a variant of Naftali Bennett's proposal to, like, squeeze the -- squeeze Hamas, it proceeds from this fiction, right, that there are two entities at war, and each entity has a home front and they meet on the battlefront. Well, in this case, there is no home front in Gaza. The entirety of Gaza is a battlefront. And Benjamin Netanyahu has had more control over every square centimeter of Gaza than Eric Adams has over any part of New York City.

So there's something at least clarifying in Bibi Netanyahu's, you know, willingness to finally declare we are going to own Gaza. The problem, as Bret points out, is that it will bring I think, you know, untold additional suffering.

There's another plan on the table. Sorry. There's another plan on the table. And that's the diplomacy that has been offered by the Saudis and the French, who have made, you know, a series of, you know, commitments that Hamas would disarm, that it would be -- have no part in governance. And for whatever reason, Netanyahu is not willing to grasp that olive branch. But that's how we get an end to this war.

STEPHENS: Well, I agree with Tarek at least partially here.

ZAKARIA: But can you address one piece of that plan, which I assume is the problem, which is the Palestinian Authority is given some jurisdiction over Gaza, right?

STEPHENS: Well, the problem with the Palestinian Authority is it's had a 30-year record of incompetence. So if there is another route to securing Gazans' future with an Arab League mandate style government or some other alternative, I think it's vastly preferable for everyone because the gerontocracy that is Mahmoud Abbas's failed regime in Ramallah is probably not well equipped to --

ZAKARIA: But the problem is that people want a Palestinian face to this. I mean, would Arabs be willing to sit, you know, to essentially take over from Israel as the occupiers of Gaza?

MASOUD: In other words, do you mean like the Egyptians or the Emiratis and the Saudis? Of course not. And if you look at the Saudi-French plan, what they're proposing is turning this over to the Palestinian Authority. And Bret is absolutely right. The Palestinian Authority has a long record of incompetence.

Now, of course, they haven't been helped by the state of Israel, but this would be a new situation where there would be considerable assistance from the Arab countries. There would be an international stabilization force. The point is, it's an improvement on the status quo.

Here's the -- here's the issue. You know, I think Bret and Bibi Netanyahu both want an outcome where Hamas raises its head above the parapet, waves the white flag and says, OK, cries uncle. They're never going to do that, in part because I don't know how much is left of Hamas. Steve Witkoff, when he pulled out of the talks, what did he say? One of the things he said is Hamas is not coordinated. How do you interpret that? I interpret that to mean there isn't much left of Hamas. And so, you know, I agree -- yes.

STEPHENS: Well, what he said is they're either in bad faith or not coordinated or both. But there is one, and this is this is key. There are 20 living human beings under Hamas's control. This war can end now with the release of those hostages and the deceased and the corpses of the deceased hostages. Pressure also needs to be brought to bear, not simply on the Israelis, but on the Qataris and the Turks, and anyone who has a hand in making decisions for Hamas to let those people go. And that needs to be much more front and center of global diplomacy, as well as global outrage when it comes to talking about Gaza.

ZAKARIA: We got to stop. When we come back, we're going to talk about the -- what happens next. Is there a path to a Palestinian state? When we come back.

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[10:18:47]

ZAKARIA: And I am back with Bret Stephens of "The New York Times" and Tarek Masoud of Harvard University's Kennedy School.

Bret, you're a close observer of Israel. You were once the editor of the "Jerusalem Post." What do you make of the kind of political mood in Israel? Everybody talks about Bibi Netanyahu, but the vast majority of Israelis do not want a Palestinian state at this point. Don't trust the Palestinians, thinks that Palestinians all want to kill them, you know, probably share the view that the Palestinian Authority should not be given much power.

Seemed to be comfortable with what is going on in the West Bank, which is, you know, itself an extraordinary series of evacuations, harassment, even mob violence. What do you make of it? And yet, you know, as Tarek says, Israel is in control of five plus million Palestinians who have no political rights. What happens?

STEPHENS: You need to find a way, and by you, I mean the Arab League, the Europeans, above all the United States, to give Israelis a well- grounded sense that they can eventually see a Palestinian state coming into being that will not be a mortal threat to their lives and their homes and the future of their state.

[10:20:09] That's why it's always been a mistake to do things as the French did. Unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. It just means that the French and the rest of the European Union has lost all credibility among the Israeli public. I think the most -- and so even though you dismissed it, I think that the long term solution, the way to get to a Palestinian state is to create what might be called an Arab mandate for Palestine, in which players like the UAE, who are trusted by Israelis and who have created a model of sustainable, genuinely progressive governance, take a guiding hand, even if they're holding the hand of someone in the PA.

Take a guiding hand in creating conditions in which Israelis can say, you know, we can live with this kind of state as our neighbor. Otherwise, the group that's going to be most -- that's going to rise in Israel is the far and farther right.

MASOUD: But, Bret, you know, what you just described is essentially what the Saudis and the French proposed, and it's not Tarek Masoud who dismissed it. It's Benjamin Netanyahu.

Look, basically, my view here is the same view as Moshe Yaalon, the former minister of defense, Ehud Barak, the former prime minister, Tamir Pardo, the former Mossad chief. You know, any number of very serious Israeli national security officials who spent their lives as warriors on behalf of the Jewish state, who are saying this war is over. There are no more strategic goals to be achieved in Gaza.

Gadi Eisenkot, the former chief of staff of the IDF, says, look, the Netanyahu government is behaving near criminally and Eisenkot says he thinks that what they want to do is go conquer, annex and resettle Gaza. So these are people from within the heart of the Israeli national security establishment. Nobody can criticize these people as being, you know, anti-Zionist, Ivy League students. And they're saying the war has to end.

And so you and I both agree that the Arab plan that is on the table, that the French and the Saudis put forth last month, is a good basis and Netanyahu rejected it.

STEPHENS: There's no question the war has to end. OK. But there's also the question of what comes after that. And if you can make -- if Hamas in some ways remains the dominant political force in Gaza and a powerful political force in the West Bank, you are guaranteeing that the tragedy that we have just all lived through is going to be repeated. So there has to be a credible mechanism, not just hortatory speeches and declarations to give Israelis some assurance that the next iteration of a Palestinian entity is not going to look like the last one.

ZAKARIA: All right. I want to ask something. We're having this conversation, which is, I think, a serious and interesting conversation. People say that you can't have these conversations on Ivy League campuses anymore. You mentioned Ivy League students. You've managed to do it at Harvard, Tarek. The report on antisemitism at Harvard commended you in particular for having this conversation.

What do you think is the state of, you know, this conversation at a place like Harvard, you know, in the Ivy Leagues?

MASOUD: You know, I think there's actually much more room for these kinds of conversations than people who listen to the president or who watch the most sensational social media would understand. I mean, I had a great conversation with Bret Stephens at Harvard, and I think Bret would testify to the fact that the vast majority of our students actually do want these kinds of conversations. They hunger for it. You know, when Bret came, he was brilliant. We had a dialogue. He destroyed me on every single point. But our students asked him a lot of tough questions. And I think you appreciated that.

STEPHENS: Yes, it was a great, and that was a model of genuine viewpoint diversity because you brought people with views opposite to mine, and that's how it should be done at a great university. Intellectual challenge at a high level.

ZAKARIA: So maybe the president needs to hear that and stop harassing Harvard.

Anyway. Bret Stephens, Tarek Masoud, thank you. Really a wonderful conversation and we'll do it again.

Next on GPS, Donald Trump's highest tariff rate in the world will be levied by the end of this month against, guess whom? India, a longtime ally that is -- acts as a buffer against China. Is that what friends are for? We'll explain when we come back.

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[10:29:01]

ZAKARIA: Just months ago, Donald Trump and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi were sharing bear hugs and lavishing each other with praise. Now their two nations are embroiled in a bitter tariff fight. This week, Trump announced that India's new base tariff rate of 25 percent would go up to a whopping 50 percent later this month due to India's continuing capacity to buy Russia's oil. This is America's highest tariff rate globally. The move threatens to upend decades of strategic diplomacy and friendship between the two nations.

Joining me now to discuss all this is the great Indian journalist Barkha Dutt.

Barkha, explain to us what is the perception and the reaction in India to what really is a kind of upending of this relationship?

BARKHA DUTT, AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST: Hi, Fareed, thanks for having me. I think there is a near unanimity in India that Donald Trump has been incendiary, he has been infantile, and he has been inane. Nobody in India believes that this has anything to do with a dispute or a disagreement over trade. Nobody believes that this is really about India's purchase of Russian oil.

In fact, India has pointed out repeatedly to the hypocrisy by the United States, by the Trump administration on this issue. The numbers speak for themselves, $3.5 billion trade value between the United States and Russia in 2024 alone, millions of value in imports of fertilizers and uranium. And when Trump is asked about this hypocrisy, he shrugs his shoulders and says, I don't know.

I think, you know, we all remember our time in school. And at the sand pit, there would be a typical bully who would come and rough up those smaller than him. Donald Trump is exactly that. He is perceived in India to be the schoolyard bully in the sand pit of global diplomacy. And I think that's how Indians perceive him.

And above all, I think what I really want your audience to understand is that for every Indian this is not about a disagreement on trade. This is about sovereignty. This is about the right of India as an independent, strong, democratic nation to determine our own foreign policy and not be hectored to by Donald Trump.

ZAKARIA: And it seems that the Indian government is taking some actions already, right? Like Modi is going to the Shanghai Cooperation meeting, which he normally does not -- does not attend. Putin is coming to India. It feels like there is a -- there is a conversation going on in India about kind of moving in a different direction.

DUTT: Well, I think Trump has only himself to blame for this. He has, with his almost sort of unstable lashing out in India using very deplorable, unhinged language like calling India a dead economy. And please note that China buys more oil from Russia than India, and he has not used that language for China, which is why most people in India believe this is nothing at all to do with Russia or Ukraine. It has to do with a giant, bruised ego. And we can come to that a little bit later.

But yes, I think Trump has sent into motions a kind of a new phase of geopolitics. Certainly, there is caution and wariness in India about China, but India is now hedging its bets. The prime minister will be attending that summit in China, as you mentioned. There has been an outreach by India's national security advisor with Vladimir Putin, who is going to come to India shortly.

And I think if you ask the person on the street in India, what do you take away from all this? The answer you get is, don't count on America. They have shown you that they are not in your -- you know, on your side. They're not in your camp. And this is perhaps an early warning to have many more sort of multilateral outreaches than moving closer to the United States of America, especially given Trump's recent pivot to Pakistan.

ZAKARIA: Yes, let's talk about that pivot to Pakistan. Very unusual, Trump met with the Pakistani army chief. I can't remember many other army chiefs in the world he has met after all Pakistan has a prime minister. Pakistan only has a 19 percent tariff rate. They're talking about joint ventures. What is the discussion in India as to why Trump has suddenly become so pro-Pakistan?

DUTT: So, you know, Fareed, the first time Asim Munir had a lunch with Trump at the White House, India thought that perhaps this is something to do with Israel's and American action on Iran, that Pakistan's geography was strategically important to Trump. And that's why Trump, who loves publicity, did not really allow the cameras into this lunch with Asim Munir.

But guess what? Asim Munir, even as you and I are speaking, is in the United States of America again. His second visit in two months. And there are media reports in India that suggest that at closed-door fundraising events, at charity dinners, Munir has been once again raising the bogey of a possible nuclear war with India, which is really, you know, in India, perceived to be a kind of nuclear blackmail to keep Pakistan's patronage of terrorism going.

So, I think now the perception is that the pivot could have something to do with business interests. There is widespread reporting in India that Trump's family is connected to a private firm that, in turn, has a business relationship with Pakistan's Crypto Council. We also hear that one of the lobbying firms that is -- that has been hired by Pakistan is run by Trump's former bodyguard. So, maybe that's making an impression on Trump.

And above all, maybe Trump is just doing this because actually, as I said, he has a giant ego that's been bruised by India refusing to give him the credit he so -- seems to desperately want for his claim of having brokered peace between India and Pakistan in the recent military conflict.

[10:35:12]

By contrast, Pakistan has sucked up to him. They have said he should get a Nobel Peace Prize. What has the Indian prime minister said? He stood up in the floor of parliament and said, yes, we did get calls from America, but that is not mediation.

India forges its own policy and we only retreated from the military conflict after devastating Pakistan's air bases. So, I think we should understand that what's happening in the name of trade is really Trump's desperation for flattery that India has refused to provide.

ZAKARIA: Barkha Dutt, always a pleasure to hear from you. We will be back.

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[10:40:30]

ZAKARIA: On February 1st, 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran after 15 years in exile. Within two months, the then reigning shah of Iran was overthrown. The Ayatollah seized power and the nation was declared an Islamic republic. This Iranian revolution shaped the Middle East for decades after, and the fallout has haunted U.S. foreign policy ever since.

Indeed, one can draw a straight line from 1979 to Trump's decision to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities last month. The author and veteran war correspondent Scott Anderson has a fascinating new book revisiting the revolution and America's errors before and after. It is called "King of Kings." Scott, welcome.

SCOTT ANDERSON, VETERAN WAR CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, Fareed. ZAKARIA: So, one of the things that I think we always puzzle about when looking at Iran today is how Islamic is the regime and how Islamic is the country? In other words, how stable is this Islamic revolution? Can you overturn it?

Because you point out, fascinatingly, that it didn't start out actually as very Islamic. There was a bunch of leftists and socialists. So, how do you answer that question given the history you know?

ANDERSON: I think the real key to understanding both the Iranian revolution of '79 and Iran today is that along with the religious revival within Iran, there was also a movement of anti-colonialism. The shah was seen as a servant of the United States. And what -- how you see that playing out today, 40-some-odd years into the -- into the Islamic revolution, is that, again, the idea of us versus them that you see in Iran is fortifying the regime. And certainly --

ZAKARIA: So, when we bomb the regime, it benefits from --

ANDERSON: Absolutely.

ZAKARIA: -- a certain kind of, you know, the support of the masses.

ANDERSON: That's right. And I maintain a discreet communication with the number of people in Iran. And what I've been hearing since the bombings is there's -- most of them in the opposition, they are despondent. They see their movement put back years and years because of this.

There's been a tremendous rallying around the flag effect within Iran. And now the regime can tarnish their opposition as lackeys of the Americans and the Israelis. So, it plays perfectly into their hands.

ZAKARIA: So, what you're painting is the picture of -- is a regime that is not teetering on the brink of collapse?

ANDERSON: I don't believe so. I don't believe it is at all. And I think that what -- and I've some of my Iranian contacts have brought this up. And Benjamin Netanyahu said during the bombings, the Israeli bombing said this is about regime change.

I mean, what a -- what a self-defeating thing to have said, because that, again, was just rallying -- caused the country to rally around the regime.

ZAKARIA: You -- in your book, you addressed it so well. The central question historically about the United States' support for the shah was, were we too tough or were we too soft?

ANDERSON: Right.

ZAKARIA: Because, you know, Carter was, in a weird way, blamed for both. He comes into office, this big avatar of human rights. But then, so people thought he was going to be super critical of the shah. Then he says, you are an island of stability in a turbulent region. But then when there are riots, people feel like he should have supported the shah, you know, more forcefully. What lesson -- first of all, tell us what you think happened in that history, and what lesson do you draw?

ANDERSON: There are so many ironies with the Iranian revolution, one being that, of course, the CIA helped prop the shah back into power in 1953, a detail most Americans certainly did not know but every Iranian knew about. And since 1953 --

ZAKARIA: And planned. By the way, the plotting of the return of the shah in '53 -- '54 took place in the basement of the American embassy.

ANDERSON: That's right.

ZAKARIA: Which is why they went in.

ANDERSON: That's right. And so, he was always seen as the American shah. And that's why I really feel with the Iranian revolution. Of course, you had this religious current, but you also had this element of anti-colonialism that the shah was seen as a lackey of the Americans. And I think people certainly in the Carter administration were very slow to see that as the shah was.

The remarkable thing about the shah, when people were marching in the streets against his rule, he was calling Carter and saying, please come out publicly and say, I'm your man, essentially. The worst possible thing that could have been done. And he did it again and again. For a very smart man, he really made some dumb moves.

[10:45:00]

ZAKARIA: When you look at Iran, you know, looking forward, do you think that they're likely to kind of cry uncle in a way that, you know, people are expecting?

ANDERSON: I don't know. You know, one thing I feel about Iran, and this really goes back to the Iranian revolution, is that this was the start of a -- of this religious nationalism that you now see in every faith, Christian nationalism in this country. You know, Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka --

ZAKARIA: Ultra-orthodox in Israel.

ANDERSON: Yes, over and over again. So, this seems to be a movement, a fever that certain regimes can galvanize the masses with. And I think that if the Iranian regime is clever, it will make this attack from -- by the Israelis and the Americans into kind of a religious attack. That it's not just Iran, it's Islam being attacked. And if they are able to do that, I think that probably it's going to give them a new lease on life for a number of years.

ZAKARIA: Scott, pleasure to have you on. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: Terrific book.

ANDERSON: Thank you.

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[10:50:52]

ZAKARIA: And now for the last look. With Benjamin Netanyahu declaring that Israel will take full control of Gaza this week, a peace deal between Israel and Hamas and the end of the suffering of ordinary Gazans seems further away than ever. But if a deal were achieved, it would be in large part thanks to the efforts of a tiny nation of just 3 million people.

Qatar has hosted on and off ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas since last year. Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has negotiated with Hamas leadership to secure the release of dozens of Israeli hostages, and Qatar helped to broker a two-month ceasefire this past January. It's aided by a close relationship with the U.S. and with Hamas, which has had a diplomatic office in Doha since 2012. Israel, for a while, had its own presence in the country as well.

But it's not only Gaza talks that the country is mediating. As the writer Nesrine Malik notes in "The Guardian," Qatar has emerged as a crisis center for the world. After the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites in June, escalating the so-called 12-day war with Israel Qatar secured Iranian acceptance of a ceasefire. It was instrumental in bringing about the peace deal signed by Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo in Washington this summer, aimed at ending an ongoing conflict. Its officials have also helped negotiate the release of Ukrainian children kidnaped by Russia.

This is an astonishing reach for a slip of a nation wedged between two feuding giants. That would be Saudi Arabia to the west, with which it shares its only land border, and Iran to the east, with which Qatar shares the world's largest undersea gas field.

Qatar's leadership has turned a position of extreme vulnerability into a strength, making itself indispensable as a neutral party to the world. Kind of like Switzerland, but closer to a lot of the action. It wasn't always so. As Malik notes, Qatar was little more than an extension of Saudi Arabia until the 1990s when it discovered the North Dome gas field. Suddenly, the country was rich. In 1995, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani wrested power from his father in a coup and pursued a more independent foreign policy.

Qatar wasn't always as neutral as it appears today. However, it ran afoul of other Gulf countries for interventionist foreign policy. After the Arab Spring, when it backed revolutionaries in Egypt, Syria, Libya and Tunisia, its antagonism of its neighbors eventually led to a crisis in 2017. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain cut ties with the country and blockaded it. The blockade, which lasted three and a half years, was bruising, but Qatar survived, adapted and learned a lesson from its overreach. One of Qatar's strengths is its willingness, born of necessity, to talk to everybody. It must maintain good relations with Iran for the sake of its economy. As Malik notes, the Qataris are sympathetic to the plight of Gazans and refuse to normalize relations with Israel. But they will negotiate with the Israelis in good faith. At the same time, Qatar has assiduously courted the Americans by buying its weapons and hosting its troops at the Al Udeid Air Base.

Qatar has its critics. It is too sympathetic to political Islam for the tastes of many in the west. Because of its relationships with Hamas and Iran, and its past support of the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, it is accused of sponsoring terrorism, an accusation Qatar rejects. But it is precisely Qatar's willingness to engage with all parties in a conflict that makes its officials effective negotiators.

Take the U.S. exit from Afghanistan in 2021. Qatar had facilitated negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban over the American withdrawal. It maintained a strong relationship with the Taliban. It has hosted the Taliban's political offices in Doha since 2013, with Washington's approval.

[10:55:04]

So, when the U.S. exit from Afghanistan turned chaotic, Qatar stepped in. After more than 120,000 people evacuated from Afghanistan, about half of them did so via Qatar. Then Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, no country has done more to help with the evacuation from Afghanistan than Qatar.

And as the scholar Sansom Milton and co-authors note in the journal "Mediterranean Politics," Qatar's relationship with the Taliban helped to boost its reputation as a trustworthy partner to rebels seeking to negotiate in other countries.

Whatever you think of its bedfellows, it is impossible to deny that Qatar is a case of a relatively weak hand, played extraordinarily well. It shows us that a small country armed with savvy leadership can punch far above its weight. Let's hope that that strength could still come in handy to end the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

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

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