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Fareed Zakaria GPS

A Tour of the World Affairs; Interview With Condoleezza Rice; Interview With Eric Schmidt

Aired May 15, 2011 - 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 terrific show for you today. First up, one of our grand tours around the world with an all-star panel.

We have more of my conversation with Condoleezza Rice. The Stanford professor will give a grade to President Obama, and to Donald Rumsfeld, who slammed her in his recent memoirs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Don is a friend, but he's a grumpy guy, all right? He is. And he doesn't know what he's talking about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: Then, a fascinating discussion with Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt about the great tablet battle between Apple and Google. Why it matters, and who will win?

Now, here's my take. Pakistan's military has been embarrassed, to put it mildly, by the suspicion that it must have known where Osama Bin Laden was hiding. In response, it is using its old tricks and hoping to ride out the storm as it has in the past. It is leaking stories to favor journalists, unleashing activists and politicians, all with the aim of stoking anti-Americanism in Pakistan.

Having been caught in a situation that suggests either complicity with al Qaeda or gross incompetence, and the reality it's probably a bit of both, it is now furiously trying to change the subject. Senior generals angrily denounce America for entering the country.

A Pakistani friend put it to me this way. It's like a person caught in bed with another man's wife who is indignant that someone entered his house.

The military has also once again been able to cow the civilian government. According to Pakistani sources, the speech that Prime Minister Gilani gave at a recent news conference was drafted by the military. So, having come to power hoping to clip the military's wings, Pakistan's democratically elected government has been reduced to mouthing talking points written for it by the intelligence service.

Now, some politicians and journalists say they want an inquiry into how America entered Pakistan. But is that really the issue? The United States has been involved in counterterrorist operations in Pakistan for years, using drones and people, going in and out.

The fundamental question is how was it that the world's leading terrorist was living in Pakistan with some kind of support network that must have included elements of the Pakistani government? How is it that every major al Qaeda official who has been captured or killed since 2002 has been found comfortably ensconced in a Pakistani city? And how is it that any time these issues are raised, they get drowned out by an organized campaign of anti-Americanism or religious fanaticism?

Washington has given in to the Pakistani military time and again, but America has leverage. Pakistan needs American aid, arms and training to sustain its army. If the generals are going to receive those benefits, they must become part of Pakistan's solution and not its problem.

Washington should do three things - press for a major national commission in Pakistan, headed by a Supreme Court justice, not an army apparatchik, to investigate whether Bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders have been supported and sustained by elements of the Pakistani state; demand that the provisions of the Lugar/Kerry Bill on civilian control on the military be strictly followed, otherwise American aid will be withheld; ask to see a plan for the Pakistani military to go after the major untouched terror networks in Pakistan, such as the Haqqani Faction, the Quetta Shura and Lashkar-i-Taiba.

In the longer run, as the United States scales back its military presence in Afghanistan - which I hope it will do - it will need the Pakistani military less and less to supply its troops in (INAUDIBLE). Pakistan's civilian government, its business class, its intellectuals have the largest role in this struggle. They should not get distracted by empty anti-American slogans or hypernationalism. This is their chance to become a normal country, and it might not come again.

Let's get started.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Joining me now for our tour of world affairs is a trio whose careers and expertise spanned the globe but we managed to bring them all into our studios today.

Anne-Marie Slaughter was the first woman to serve as Director of Policy Planning, the top strategist at the U.S. Department of State. She has now returned to Princeton to teach.

Joshua Cooper Ramo is the Managing Director of Kissinger Associates. Before that, he was "Time" magazine's youngest ever world editor. And Kishore Mahbubani has been a career diplomat, representing Singapore around the world and heading its foreign office. He is now the head of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

Welcome to all of you.

Kishore, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, how has it been perceived around the world outside of the United States?

KISHORE MAHBUBANI, DEAN, THE LEE KUAN YEW SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY: Well, I think the world is better off with Osama being eliminated, and nobody cried, I guess, when he left the scene. But, at the same time, I was actually very troubled by the celebrations that you saw in America about his killing because it seemed to imply that, hey, the problem is over. We can now carry on.

But the fundamental problem of (INAUDIBLE) growing disconnect within America and the Islamic world in America and 1.2 billion Muslims, still remains. And it's important to not believe that the killing of Osama Bin Laden has solved all your problems. Indeed, there's probably a greater need now for America to engage the Islamic world, mostly obviously to try and bridge this growing disconnect that exists over there.

ZAKARIA: What do you think, Anne-Marie?

ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: I don't - I don't think the celebrations were this is the end of all our troubles. I think this was catharsis after a decade of - after 9/11, where no matter what we did, we couldn't even capture Osama Bin Laden, and particularly for the young people who were 12, 13, coming of age at 9/11. They're in college now and they're the ones you saw just - with this relief and the sense that a shadow had been lifted.

I also think the real significance is not that al Qaeda is - is not to be worried about as an enemy but it allows us to pivot to a different face of Islam. Now you can see the Arab spring as the primary face of Muslims, demonstrating seeking a better life, which is a far more positive image than that turbaned enemy.

ZAKARIA: What did you think of Obama's leadership? I mean, how does - the Chinese view these things very carefully. You spend half your time in China.

JOSHUA COOPER RAMO, KISSINGER ASSOCIATES: You know, I think the - I think a lot of us reflected on that remarkable image from the Situation Room. I mean, I - for all of us who grew up setting foreign policy and obsessed by the nuances of everything that happens in these moments where history is really made, to have a photo like that and to see the president sitting where he was sitting, to see the Secretary of State, either because had an allergy or because more likely she was having a very human reaction, that this is a - this is a horrible thing to be watching unfolding in front of your eyes.

I think it demonstrated a - you know, a real decisiveness to decide to go ahead in what was a clearly a very risky operation. But you can see the president's instinct, even in that photo, where he's sort of sitting off to the side, to not lead from the center. Somebody said if you looked at that photo you would have thought that Rich Daley was the president. He's the one wearing the tie and looks like he's in charge.

And I think that kind of highlights the challenge going forward, which is, you know, as they look at the Middle East, is - is our role - is America's role in the Middle East, which is going to continue to evolve, and - and what's happened to Bin Laden is sort of a milestone, to sit off to the side, to sort of be part of a group that's making things happen, or is it really to take a leadership role? And I think that's a crucial question they've got to answer in the coming weeks because there still, as Kishore points out, huge national security threats that we face, whether it's the ongoing threat of terrorism or issues like Iran. Those things don't go away just because Bin Laden is gone.

ZAKARIA: So how do you think -

MAHBUBANI: (INAUDIBLE) -

ZAKARIA: I'm sorry. I was going to ask, how do you think the world reacts to this sort of lead from behind idea? I'm going to get to Anne-Marie, because she's quoted in that article where that phrase comes from. But Obama's team, somebody said - to be fair, specifically about Libya, which was a case where they wanted the Europeans to - to take the lead, isn't this, though, the America that the world wanted to see? A more cooperative, multilateral America, relying on other people to get involved?

MAHBUBANI: Well, I think - a very important point I need to emphasize here is don't underestimate the sophistication of the elite overseas and the understanding of what's happening in the world. And they'll always look at both American rhetoric and American deeds, whether we - and American power is present everywhere.

Now, if American power is present in Israel and Palestine, present in the Gulf and present everywhere, you cannot lead from behind. You are involved. You are there. You are participating.

ZAKARIA: But I have to say, Kishore, when we lead from the front you call us unilateral. When we lead from behind, you say we're not leading from the front. So it's a little -

MAHBUBANI: No, I -

ZAKARIA: -- damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario.

MAHBUBANI: No, I think it's a question about the policies that you adopt and whether they work or they don't work here.

ZAKARIA: Anne-Marie?

SLAUGHTER: I - I just don't think lead from behind is the right expression at all. I don't know where it came from. It's certainly not the way the White House thinks about it. And I wouldn't read too much into that picture. I - I think they were all exhausted. They were all watching a risky operation.

But the president came out of this looking like a very decisive person, someone who was patient and persistent and ready to make a really tough call when he had to. I think that's true on Libya, too. He - he delayed more than I wanted him to, but he, again, was very decisive.

But the way he describes his leadership is we create the conditions and the coalitions for others to step up. Now, that's not leading from behind. We're there. We are politically indispensable. We go to the U.N. We have to offer our support. We have to make sure that the other countries are participating.

But once we've done that, his idea is we shouldn't be the global policemen. Other countries have a really strong stake in these outcomes and we should be willing to share responsibility with them. Sometimes that means they'll do things in ways we would have done slightly differently, but I don't think that's leading from behind. I think that's leading in a world of many different powers where you're still the dominant player but you need to make sure others are taking their share of responsibility.

ZAKARIA: Now, and other places are going to try to lead as this speech on the Arab spring or on the Arab spring plus the death of Osama. Do you think that - you know, presumably this is going to be a chance for the United States to align its interests with those of the people of the Arab world.

RAMO: Yes. I mean, I think this is a - this is - what you've identified is a really fundamental question, the nature of leadership. You know, it's almost exactly two years ago, I think it was June 4, 2009, that he gave the Cairo speech, and I think everybody understands the incredible significance of that.

That would be an example of something that might be seen as a catalyzing event. He went in and he did exactly what you said, he tried to create the conditions that were necessary.

You know, I think when you look at it from the standpoint of what America's national interests are in the Middle East, is it reasonable to assume that a set of catalyzing policies is likely to get us where we need? And I think that's what's going to be important about this speech. Are we going to hear more catalyzing policies?

We really believed catalyzing policies will stop Iranian nuclear proliferation, for instance. Is that something that we can afford, to kind of put a few ideas in motion and let people in the region take charge of that? Or is that something we need to take charge of?

And I think the speech hopefully will delineate some of those things and say, you know, there are a few areas in which a strong American position is very important and I suspect the Iranian proliferation should be one of them. And there are other areas where this more catalytic approach might be appropriate, but I don't think you can -

ZAKARIA: So you're saying - so you're saying a nice speech about democracy isn't going to stop Iran's nuclear program ?

RAMO: Right, exactly. And I think the idea that having democracy promotion as the core tenet of your foreign policy is a very important American value. That's part of who we are and it's part of what allows America to (INAUDIBLE).

ZAKARIA: But I sense a "but."

RAMO: Having said that, I don't think in the timeframe in which we're talking about the possibility of developments in Iran at a - at a pace that will make a meaningful difference to their nuclear trajectory is likely. And I think the implications of a nuclear Iran are tremendous.

ZAKARIA: We will be back to discuss all of this and more right after this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAMO: I think every United States decision for the next - until we get strong again, has to be run through the filter of what does it take to have a strong economy? Because we have no hope of - of kind of garnering the sorts of loyalties that we need if people think we're weak and declining.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: And we are back with Anne-Marie Slaughter from Princeton, Kishore Mahbubani from Singapore, and Josh Ramo from China and the United States.

Kishore, one of the things Obama has to deal with is - no matter what happens in his foreign policy, it's the economy that's going to determine whether he gets re-elected. And you wrote a broadside against basically the whole way Americans are approaching their economic policy. You're saying it's all about cutting budgets, it's all about worrying about, you know, Medicare and Medicaid. What - what we really need is strong state directed economic planning in the model of - surprise, surprise - Singapore or China, right?

MAHBUBANI: Well - I think you sort of exaggerated the argument a bit, but -

ZAKARIA: You know the - the "Economist" magazine has two rules that says when it - when it hires its young editors, it says simplify, then exaggerate.

MAHBUBANI: True. And I want to - and I want to emphasize one point, that the world wants America to succeed, you know? But now, the level of concern about the future of the American economy is the highest I have ever seen in my entire life. And there's a sense of, hey, what happens if things go fundamentally wrong in America?

I mean, just imagine, it is conceivable that within two to three years, the markets or the bond markets will say hey, you don't touch U.S. Treasury bills. But what happens then? Now, that's the kind of horror scenario that was inconceivable but now is conceivable and actually you have traders and all figuring out what might happen and what they might (INAUDIBLE) -

ZAKARIA: Is this really conceivable, Josh? I mean, look at what's happening in Greece right now, with Europe. Who's going to - I mean, when you look at the alternatives --

RAMO: Well, I think one of the - and I'm certain on of the lessons of the last few years is the inconceivable is - should be conceivable, and I think Kishore's point is a - is a good one. And I think it's - it's a valid point for a couple of reasons.

First of all, I think in terms of domestic economics of the United States, we're now at three years of nine percent unemployment. We've not had a confidence of jobs bill passed (ph), and I think there's reason to be nervous about that. We haven't seen that before.

But I think the second point, which is how the rest of the world looks at the United States, is also very significant. I think every United States decision for the next - until we get strong again - has to be run through the filter of what does it take to have a strong economy? Because we have no hope of kind of garnering the sorts of loyalties that we need, even for the sorts of multilateral policies that people want to pursue, if people think we're weak and declining.

ZAKARIA: What do you think?

SLAUGHTER: I think -

ZAKARIA: Speak up for America.

SLAUGHTER: Yes. I always do. And I was against you (ph).

I mean, in the first place, I remember the remember the 1970s and stagflation and the sense that we were going absolutely nowhere, and other countries were going to pass us. So I see this as - as absolutely a critical point. This president came in knowing this was his job. He has done a number of things that are going to take a while to -

RAMO: Don't you feel a lack of urgency? And I'm just - as somebody who lives in Beijing and I look at the amount of urgency there is in Beijing about policy planning and - on economic policy and I come back to the United States, I spend time in Washington and New York. I don't feel nearly the sense of urgency.

SLAUGHTER: No. I don't - on the contrary. We're having real huge debates, first about the '11 budget, now this debate about the debt ceiling is enormous. And we're actually going to figure out where the consensus is -

(CROSSTALK)

RAMO: There is nine percent unemployment with no job bill. I mean, how can you - how can that possibly -

(CROSSTALK)

SLAUGHTER: Because the American political process has focused first on the debt and the deficit, which is right, because we know long term we have the chief of - the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, says our deficit and long-term debt is the biggest national security threat we face. Secretary of State says that. The president, as a national security strategy that says we have to rebuild our economic foundations at home where we can't (INAUDIBLE).

RAMO: But doesn't it make you nervous when there's that much consensus about something? I mean, when I -

SLAUGHTER: No (ph).

RAMO: -- when I hear all these people agreeing that it's the debt, it immediately makes me think what - these people can't all -

ZAKARIA: So you don't think it's -

RAMO: You know, I think the debt is important, but I think - as I said, I think every single American discussion has to be driven through the issue of what does it take to create around the world the perception that we are a strong and prosperous country? The nature of economics is that if we had -

ZAKARIA: Yes, but the perception that we're not strong is - has a lot to do with the debt -

RAMO: It's something to do with the debt, but it's - everything we know about Keynesian economics is actually sometimes we have to go into debt. We have to - just like people have to borrow money to do things, invest in their education and other things. And debt is actually a sensible strategy so we can - and we're in a position where we can actually take on the debt.

ZAKARIA: Oh, we're going to have one more discussion about - about Keynes versus (INAUDIBLE). But we have to go.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, Kishore Mahbubani, Josh Ramo, thank you so much.

We will be right back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: Now for our "What in the World?" segment, here are some astonishing numbers that got is thinking. One out of every four people in this planet paid a bribe last year. Bribery has been said to cost the world $1 trillion a year. The U.N. says bribes accounted for 1/4 of Afghanistan's annual GDP.

So I was intrigued to hear about an innovative idea to deal with corruption from one of the places most plagued by it - India. India's Chief Economic Adviser, the economist Kaushik Basu, posted a paper on his personal website in which he made a case for legalizing certain types of bribes.

Hear this out. Corruption is a huge and growing problem in India. More than half of all Indians say they had to pay a bribe last year. Many of those are what Basu calls "harassment bribes" or harassment bribes, illegal payments to get basic services, like an extra 100 rupees to get a driver's license or a routine permission.

These are the kinds of bribes Basu wants to change the law on. Under current Indian law, both the bribe giver and the bribe taker are guilty. If they're caught, both are fined an equal amount, say 100 rupees. So the state gets 200 rupees total.

Well, Basu has a radical proposal. Fine the bribe taker, the government official, 200 rupees, he says. Let the bribe giver go scot-free. So the government collects the same amount in fines, but the person who had to pay the bribe is not fined. Instead, he gets his bribe money back.

So how does this reduce corruption? Well, Basu's game theory simulation suggests that bribery in general will decrease because people who are asked for bribes can pay the money and they can still go and complain without worrying that they will be prosecuted. And the corrupt official who takes the bribe will know that if they take the money they face twice the penalty.

It's a fascinating idea. It's come in for lots of criticism in India, but the critics are missing the point. India needs creative thinking to cure the cancer of corruption that it is actually getting much worse, and not just in India.

Take a look at this map. It's a corruption index, put together by Transparency International. The redder a country is, the more corrupt its bureaucrats. The yellow spots are less corrupt. You notice here in the U.S. we're not doing too badly.

So what's the least corrupt country in the world? Singapore.

About five decades ago, that tiny country was newly independent, and for all of the rapid growth, it had the usual third world baksheesh culture. That changed under Lee Kuan Yew. He decided to pay government officials at par with those in the private sector. That killed the incentive for officials to be corrupt.

The Singapore solution is expensive, especially for large countries with large bureaucracies, but it would probably still be a bargain considering how much corruption costs most economies.

Another innovative idea came out of Africa. The Sudanese-born billionaire Mo Ibrahim often wondered why his continent had the richest resources, the richest natural resources, and yet the poorest people.

Identifying corrupt leaders is the problem. Ibrahim tried to change those leaders' incentives. He instituted the annual Ibrahim Prize. It awards $5 million to an African leader who is not corrupt and leads office peacefully. The winner then goes on to get an additional $200,000 annually for life.

A great incentive, right? The problem is they couldn't find a winner for 2009 or 2010. The jury simply refused to make the award to someone who was not truly deserving.

But the point of this story isn't to despair. Corruption or bribery are not innate cultural qualities. Singapore shows that cultures can change. Studies show that these crimes are due to inertia. If everyone's doing it, then it's ennui (ph) incentive to take and offer bribes as well. But how do you get to a critical mass where people stop doing it? Well, smart government policies, good leadership from the private and public sector, all that helps.

It is possible. This is the year of change, after all. And remember, much of the popular anger against governments in the Arab world this year was fueled by the sense that they were out of touch, repressive, and corrupt. So let's try more ideas like the one from Mr. Basu in India.

And we'll be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: So, I have to ask you, Don Rumsfeld says that you were, to put it bluntly, a bad national security adviser. What do you say?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Condoleezza Rice, thanks for joining us.

RICE: Pleasure to be with you, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: So it has been about two years that President Obama has been in office. You are a former National Security Adviser, former Secretary of State, former and now, again, college professor in American Foreign Policy. What grade would you give President Obama?

RICE: Well, I only give grades to Stanford students. But - I believe that there's a lot of continuity in the policies that have been pursued. And while I may or may not agree with every decision that's been made, I know how hard it is to be in there and to make those decisions. So I - like President Bush has said, I'm going to make certain that I don't chirp at my successors, you know. You're in, you're making difficult calculations every day.

I remember very well that sometimes I would get up and would read the newspaper and it would say the Bush administration should get Iran to cooperate and they should get sanctions against Iran. And I think why didn't I think of that? You know? It's just hard.

But I think that this is a very good national security team, and they're protecting the country.

ZAKARIA: You know, this is going to horrify both people on the left and the right. Which is, you know, the left wanted a sharp break with Bush's policies. The right thinks that Obama is betraying the country. You are say, no, there's - there's an element of continuity.

RICE: The United States sets its the foreign policy as a great big aircraft carrier. It doesn't turn around quickly. Our interests tend to be stable. And, again, while I may not agree with every word that's been uttered, with everything that's been done, the United States is a country that is pursuing its interests and its values. So - and that's very - very important, too.

And I think what we're seeing is that you have your presidential election, the president becomes president and then he realizes that his responsibilities to protect the country look very different from inside the Oval Office than in anticipation of getting there.

ZAKARIA: So let's talk about some of those decisions. Libya, President Obama is trying to do something that seems a little different in Libya, which is to say the United States wants to help. It wants to be supportive. But this is not an area that direct - that defects our core interest to points such an extent that we want to be the lead player.

So he is trying this process of letting the Europeans take more of the lead, we provide some support. Is that the right model?

RICE: Well, first let's talk about Libya. I am very grateful that we disarmed Colonel Gadhafi. I'm very grateful that his WMD are sitting in Oakridge, Tennessee because we would be facing a very different situation right now in Libya at where he's still in possession of those weapons of mass destruction.

There are things about the way this operation is unfolding that I think are questionable, that are troubling. I'm not quite certain what the end game is here. I'm not quite certain who the rebels are and, therefore, what part they will play in the end game. I think it's good that others can take lead like the British and French.

You know, NATO is not an alien being to us. We are indeed central to NATO. And so you can't actually hand an operation off to NATO. The United States is too central and too much important part of its capability. And so we'll see how this comes out.

I don't mind -

ZAKARIA: Would have you gone in - would you have (INAUDIBLE)?

RICE: Well - this is one, Fareed - I'm usually very clear on these things. But I was kind of 50/50 on this one. I could see on both sides of this an important set of principles to engage.

My concern is that humanitarian interventions are always a bit slippery. Are we intervening in humanitarian affair because someone is about to slaughter his people quickly? On CNN, that's probably not a good argument.

But we don't intervene if they are slaughtering them solely out of - out of the eye of the press. And so we have to be a little bit careful with the argument for humanitarian intervention.

I think you could argue that in the middle of the Arab spring to have Gadhafi successfully mow down his people and by brute force stop the demonstrations that that might have been an argument for intervention.

ZAKARIA: "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," do you agree with President Obama's decision?

RICE: I do agree with the decision on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." This is a country that somehow finds its way around these difficult social issues in time and given enough time. And -

ZAKARIA: Why didn't you guys do it then?

RICE: Well, I - President Bush had a lot on his plate - a lot on his plate. And everything can't be done in one administration. It's true, I think it was time. And I think Bob Gates has handled it very, very well.

I think the issue was an issue of military - for the military of making certain that we had a military that still functioned well and once the Pentagon was satisfied with that, I see no reason not to do it.

ZAKARIA: Perhaps the biggest strategic decision President Obama took in his first two years was the decision to - to do the surge in Afghanistan. Close to doubling, maybe even tripling the number of troops in total.

It's a - it's a large commitment to a kind of very comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign that is very expensive, can go on for years. Is it the right move?

RICE: Well, we indeed in the last year or so of the Bush administration went through a fairly thorough review of Afghanistan. It's fair to say - and I want people to understand that in 2005-2006 things were not going so badly in Afghanistan. They seemed to be going in the right direction, in fact.

And it really was the development of the safe haven in Pakistan. That made the situation in Afghanistan look very different by 2008. And so we did start to increase troop presence and to broaden the counterinsurgency effort there.

It's now a quite large effort. And we can get this done. It may not take - I don't think it will take forever. I - what we're looking to do is to build healthy Afghans build security forces that can prevent an existential threat to Afghanistan from the Taliban. Get them more decent government. It is not going to - like Switzerland but more decent government. And then I think we can begin a drawdown pretty safely.

ZAKARIA: So I have to ask you, Don Rumsfeld says that you were, to put it bluntly, a bad national security adviser. That you didn't take to President Bush the hard difficult differences among his key national security advisers and that perused a lot of the dysfunction that people commented on. He really puts it pretty squarely on you. What do you say?

RICE: Don is a friend and he'll always be a friend, but he is a grumpy guy. Al right. He is. And he doesn't know what he is talking about. He never followed me from the Situation Room to the Oval Office where the president and I would have intense discussions about what was going on in that room, who thought what. And whether the president would decide to go back in there and keep seeing if you can find a consensus or whether the president would take a decision. And the president was not shy about taking a decision.

And so Don doesn't know what he's talking about. And, plus, I write my own book and then we can talk about it.

ZAKARIA: Condoleezza Rice, thank you very much.

RICE: Thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC SCHMIDT, EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN, GOOGLE: The next generation of children will grow up with this ubiquitous network of intelligence around them and they'll take it for granted and they'll wonder how did you actually operate without knowing all this all the time?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Candy Crowley and here are today's top stories.

In Louisiana, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is considering opening at least two more flood gates along the Mississippi River which will flood some farm lands and homes, but spare larger cities. The flood gates are in Morganza over 100 miles away from New Orleans. The Army Corps already opened one gate yesterday, the first time in over 40 years.

Clashes between pro-Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces along Israel's borders today left four people dead and 85 wounded. According to the Israeli Military hundreds of protesters burst through the border with Syria and soldiers opened fire to stop them. The demonstrations marked the 63rd anniversary of Israel's creation. And Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the leader of International Monetary Fund and a possible candidate for president of France, was arrested early this morning for the alleged sexual assault of a New York City Hotel maid. His attorney tells CNN Strauss-Kahn will plead not guilt to the charges against him. Strauss-Kahn is considered the strongest potential challenger to President Nicolas Sarkozy in France's 2012 presidential elections.

And those are your top stories. Up next, more FAREED ZAKARIA GPS and then "RELIABLE SOURCES" at the top of the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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ZAKARIA: There's a good chance that you either have a tablet, one of those computing devices that's larger than a cell phone but much smaller than the laptop, or you thought about buying one. And when you look at the shelves, you have many options. Apple's iPad has 80 percent of the market right now, but there's also Samsung and Motorola, RIM, HTC and many more.

My next guest says this isn't just a brand war. It's a war of ideas and a war for the future. That next guest is Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. I sat down with him for a special we're working on about innovation. And by the way, take out those tablets and mark your electronic calendars. That special will air on June 5th at 8:00 P.M. Eastern and Pacific.

Schmidt has more than a bit of a bias with Google's products but his insights into the future of technology are nonetheless absolutely fascinating.

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ZAKARIA: You have Apple coming out with this extremely elegant iPad that everyone's in love with. But it requires that you follow Apple's rules and all the restrictions that it places. No Flash, Windows, the most prominent. And now you have Android providing a kind of open platform.

Obviously - as the head of Google you're going to tell me Android is going to win. But tell me something about this contest.

SCHMIDT: It's a classic contest in high-tech. And in that contest, you have a very well-run, very focused closed competitor who builds a great product that does something that's very useful. That will be apple.

You have another competitor who makes all the technology available to everybody else and using various creativity and various partnerships and so forth gets the benefit of everyone else's creativity.

Because there are more people involved in the open side of that, that side will eventually get more volume, have more investment, therefore have more creativity and more innovation. And ultimately, the end user will choose the open one over the closed one.

ZAKARIA: Except right now the open one, all these tablets that are Android based, are - let's be honest, they're not as good as the - as the iPad and they're more expensive which strikes me as unusual.

SCHMIDT: But which approach will produce a lower product quicker? One manufacturer for a product or many manufacturers competing? The fact of the matter is we're just at the beginning of this fight. And the fight between two very well-run, very large, very significant ecosystem companies will ultimately produce great value to consumers because the fight between them will keep prices low, keep the systems honest and open and encourage the kind of investment that people want to see.

One of the greatest things about this contest is that the people who win in this are the consumer.

ZAKARIA: But you imagine that some - that this will end up very much like the PC market where Apple had this very elegant product that many people thought was perhaps better, but because it stayed closed it ended up being a boutique product and yours will be open, much larger, many more users and many more applications.

SCHMIDT: There's pride in both approaches, but they're completely different. In Apple's case, they can continue to build beautiful and excellent products. The ecosystem that Google represents will continue and already has more volume, more users and will have more investment in the platform. Ultimately that will produce cheaper, better and faster products for everybody.

ZAKARIA: Is cloud computing also part of this future and that the actual device does not need to be that powerful because you can connect into the cloud?

SCHMIDT: As an experiment, turn off all of your devices and disconnect from the Internet for six or seven hours. You realize how dependent you have become on it. Not just for communication but for your services, to buy movie tickets or what have you.

The architecture of the Internet is now turning to this thing which we all call cloud computing. Cloud meaning the information is out there in the clouds somewhere and you just pick up a device, turn it on and it's there.

The new generation of devices from Google and others, you'll be able to just pick them up, log in and then just give it to somebody else, log off and it will erase your information and so forth. All of a sudden the device has become disposable. All of a sudden, when you drop or you lose or you break your computer, you wouldn't lose everything, because it's stored in the cloud.

ZAKARIA: You once said to me mobile phones will be 100 times more powerful than they are in 10 years. That - that sounds difficult to imagine.

SCHMIDT: Well, think about mobile phones a decade ago and you can see that it is 100 times faster today than it was 10 years ago. How quickly we forget the primitive world that we lived in 10 - 15 years ago.

The fact of the matter is that the future is mobile computing that people will carry any number of devices connects to the clouds. And those devices will provide some varying services. Today, your phone knows who you are, where you are, where - where you're going to some degree because it you can see your path. And with that, and with your permission, it's possible for software and software developers to predict where you are going to go, to suggest people you should meet, to suggest activities and so forth.

So ultimately, what happens is the mobile phone does what it does best, which is remember everything and makes suggestions and then you can be just a better human and have a good time.

ZAKARIA: What will the world of technology look like 10 years from now?

SCHMIDT: It's hard to predict 10 years. But we do know that the devices will be so much faster and so much more useful. The real revolution is in the applications.

There's a new standard in the Internet called HTML 5 which everyone is adopting, which means that web applications will run on all of these devices in a very powerful way. They have very complex and powerful games that people will spend their time on, a whole new generation of social activities of one kind or another.

But to me the most interesting things about what computers will do will be allowing us to be - to have more fun, right? Like to have more rich lives. To - to think about new ideas. The computer will suggest things that you might be interested in.

Since I'm a history buff, if I'm walking down here in the street, it will tell me the history of the area. It will tell me that something that I might be interested in.

All of a sudden, that augmentation of my human experience is something, it's really a wow moment every - every hour.

ZAKARIA: And of course, after a while we'll take it for granted and we wouldn't imagine life whatever without it.

SCHMIDT: And just like your children have always had - grown up with cell phones, the next generation of children will grow up with this ubiquitous network of intelligence around them. And they'll take it for granted and they'll wonder how did you actually operate without knowing all this all al the time? How did you determine where to meet somebody?

ZAKARIA: So should we be teaching the way we are teaching now with intelligence all around? Do we need to be drumming facts into people's heads with spell check all around? Do we need to be teaching them spending hours and hours teaching children how to spell? SCHMIDT: There's a lot of evidence that the next generation of teachers will use computers much more interrelated in the classroom. That an awful lot of learning is better than when self-paced but when it's targeted to the students.

So if you can come up with teaching programs where there are tests and appropriate metrics and then the students with appropriate incentives can keep going, there's a lot of evidence that people learn best in these multiplayer games where all of a sudden audio and visual cues and contests and prizes, people move very quickly through those and they learn enormous amount.

People were very concerned when games came along that another generation of people would be stupefied. But somehow the testing indicates that the navigational aspects and the role playing aspects of these games and that improves cognition, improves their ability to reason even though you look at it and say how could that be. It looks like they're very good for people.

ZAKARIA: Eric Schmidt, pleasure to have you.

SCHMIDT: Thank you very much.

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ZAKARIA: Our question this week from the "GPS Challenge" is what reportedly caused thousands of people to flee Rome on Wednesday. Was it A) a roundup of illegal Immigrants; B) a rally to support Berlusconi and his sex trial; C) a prediction of an earthquake; or D) a plague of bedbugs?

Stay tuned. We'll tell you the correct answer. Make sure to go to CNN.com/GPS for 10 more questions. While you're there, make sure you check out our website, the Global Public Square where you will find smart interviews and takes by some of our favorite experts. You will also find all of our GPS shows. So if you've missed one, you can click and watch. You can also DVR the show, of course, and you can get it on iTunes for free.

My book of the week is Henry Kissinger's latest "On China." This is a must read. Part history, part memoir of Kissinger's extensive dealings with Chinese leaders over 40 years and part analysis. This is a major work that Henry Kissinger could write such an ambitious book at the age of 88 is just extraordinary. It will be in bookstores on Tuesday.

And now for "The Last Look." It was the picture that seemed to deftly capture the stress and tension of the Bin Laden raid. As seen in the White House Situation Room. It has also become the picture that spawned a thousand and one variations.

You might have seen this version published in a Jewish newspaper where the women in the room were Photoshopped out for religious proprietary. And how about this counter photo where all the men were cut out of the frame?

And then all the president's men and women look lovely in Princess Beatrice's fascinator from the royal wedding.

But this might be my favorite. The superhero squad. President Obama is Captain America, Vice President Biden as Flash. Madam Secretary as Wonder Woman and many more.

The correct answer to our "GPS Challenge" question was C, a prediction made in 1979 that a massive earthquake would hit Rome on May 11, 2011 is said to have cause an exodus from the Italian capital on Wednesday. Interestingly, an earthquake did hit Spain that day.

Go to our website for more. Next week make sure to tune in for a very special edition of GPS. We'll be coming to you from Cairo, from Tahrir Square actually with an update on the Arab Spring, four months after it all began.

Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week. Stay tuned for "RELIABLE SOURCES."

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