Sunday, December 2, 2012

Transcript: 'Fareed Zakaria GPS' (12-2-12)

Full Transcript. Excerpt below:

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 will take you around the world today starting with Egypt. The nation has erupted. We'll explain what the power struggle between the president and the courts means for the rest of the Arab world and the world at large.

Then, China's new leaders, we know their names, but just who are they and what can we expect from them. Is Xi Jinping China's Gorbachev or will he take a hard line?

Finally, the Black Swan; it was a best-seller that some say predicted the economic crisis. Its author, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, on his fascinating new book.

Also, the next phase of Europe's crisis, which nations might find themselves split apart? I'll explain.

But, first, here's my take. Yasser Arafat's body has been exhumed for investigation, bringing back memories of the unpredictable Palestinian leader and the Middle East in which he operated.

The news broke at a time when a conventional wisdom began to take hold that the Middle East today is much more dangerous, unstable, violent and anti-American than before. So let's take a look at the facts.

In the 1980s, the newly empowered, radical Islamic Republic of Iran unsettled the region with its promise to spread its revolution elsewhere. Lebanon was in the midst of a bloody civil war that engulfed not only itself but also the Palestinians and Israel.

Iran and Iraq fought a gruesome war with over 1 million casualties. Hezbollah attacked U.S. armed forces directly, forcing a humiliating withdrawal from Lebanon. A CIA station chief was tortured and killed, and U.S. secrets and interests compromised. And that was just in one decade.

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