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Fareed Zakaria GPS
The Veneration of Vladimir Putin; Interview with President Petro Poroshenko; Interview with Ray Kelly; The Humanitarian Nightmare in Yemen; Interview with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta; Interview with Anne-Marie Slaughter, Andy Moravcsik. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired October 18, 2015 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:00:28] 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 great show for you today. We will discuss Vladimir Putin's moves in the Middle East. But also in Ukraine. This week Dutch investigators released a damning report on the downing of the Malaysian Airlines passenger jet. I'll have an exclusive interview with Ukraine's president, Petro Poroshenko.
Also, the terror threat to the American homeland. How has the emergence of ISIS changed the calculus of risk. I will talk to Ray Kelly, the longest serving police commissioner ever from New York City.
Then the terror threat across the Atlantic in Africa. Kenya's president, Uhuru Kenyatta, on the threats and ambitions of Somalia's indiscriminant killers Al-Shabaab.
And Anne-Marie Slaughter is making waves with her new book on why working women can't have it all. We talk to her and the lead parent in her household, her husband.
First, here's my take. Vladimir Putin has America's foreign policy establishment swooning. One columnist admires the decisiveness that has put him in the driver's seat in the Middle East. A sober-minded pundit declares not since the end of the Cold War a quarter century ago has Russia been as assertive or Washington as acquiescent.
It's true that it's been a quarter century since Moscow has been so interventionist outside its borders. The last time it made these kinds of moves in the late 1970s and 1980s it invaded Afghanistan and intervened in other countries as well. Back then commentators similarly hailed those actions as signs that Moscow was winning the Cold War.
Now how did that work out for the Soviet Union?
Washington's foreign policy elites have developed a mindset that mistakes activity for achievement. They assume that every crisis in the world can and should be solved by a vigorous assertion of American power, preferably military power. Failure to do this spells passivity and produces weakness. By this logic Russia and Iran are the new masters of the Middle East.
Never mind that those countries are desperately trying to shore up a sinking ally. Their client, the Assad regime in Syria, is a minority regime. The Alawites represent less than 15 percent of the country's population and faces a series of deadly insurgencies supported by vast portions of the Syrian population. And if Russia and Iran win somehow against the odds they get Syria, which is a cauldron, not a prize.
Imagine if today's interventionists had their way and President Obama escalated force in the Middle East. Imagine that it was successful and the Assad regime fell. What would be the likely outcome?
Here is some clues. Washington deposed Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, Syria's next door neighbor with many of the same tribes and sectarian divides. It did far more in Iraq than anyone is asking for in Syria putting 170,000 boots on the ground at the peak and spending nearly $2 trillion over a decade. And yet a humanitarian catastrophe ensued with roughly four million civilians displaced and at least 150,000 killed.
Washington then deposed in Moammar Gadhafi's regime in Libya but chose to leave nation building to the locals. The result has been what the "New Yorker" calls a battled-worn wasteland in Libya.
In Yemen the United States supported regime change and new elections. The result, a civil war that is tearing the country apart.
Those who are so righteous and certain that this next intervention would save lives should at least pause and ponder the humanitarian consequences of the last three. In Neil Ferguson's intelligent and sympathetic biography of Henry Kissinger's early life, I was struck by how today's mood resembles that of the 1950s.
[10:05:01] In the 1950s the atmosphere abounded with what in retrospect seemed deeply dangerous proposals simply designed to demonstrate American strength and vigor, from deposing Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser to military confrontations with the Soviet Union and Hungary, to the use of nuclear weapons over Taiwan. Pundits were clamoring for these interventions and were outraged, for example, that North Vietnam and Cuba had gone communist while the United States just sat there and watched.
In the midst of all these petitions and pleas for action, one man, President Dwight Eisenhower, kept his cool, even though it sank his poll numbers. The Kennedy-Johnson administration ended what they saw as the passivity in foreign policy notably in Cuba and Vietnam with disastrous results.
I believe that decades from now we will be glad that Barack Obama chose Dwight Eisenhower's path to global power and not Putin's.
For more go to CNN.com/fareed and read my "Washington Post" column this week. And let's get started.
When Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine 15 months ago 192 Dutch citizens perished. This week their nation, the Netherlands, released a damning investigative report on how and why its citizens and 105 others died.
The report pointed fingers in two different directions. It said that a Russian made Buk missile fired from territory controlled by pro- Russian separatists is what downed the airliner. But the report also put some lesser blame on Ukraine, saying the nation had sufficient reason to close its airspace before the shoot-down occurred.
Joining me now for an exclusive interview is Ukraine's president, Petro Poroshenko.
Thank you for joining me, Mr. President.
PRES. PETRO POROSHENKO, UKRAINE: Thank you for the invitation.
ZAKARIA: Do you believe that Ukraine should have shut down its airspace given the knowledge you had, the violence that was already afoot?
POROSHENKO: Yes. Of course Ukraine is strictly follow all the recommendation of the ICAO. And the time we close the airspace at the height seems to me 9,725 meters. We don't have any information which give us the necessity to close the airspace above these echelon and we strictly follow the recommendation of the ICAO.
We cannot imagine that the Russia will transfer these highly sophisticated and very technological weapons to the hands of the terrorists and we don't have any background, any basis for making this decision.
ZAKARIA: One of the things people are trying to figure out in the West is, is Vladimir Putin searching for a negotiated settlement in Ukraine? Is he searching for a way to deescalate the situation, to stabilize the situation because he faces shrinking economy, sanctions, collapse of oil prices and now of course he has this intervention in Syria? Do you believe that Putin is looking for some kind of settlement? Do you see any signs of that?
POROSHENKO: I wish but unfortunately no. Unfortunately until the September we have an active combat operation and only now we have a ceasefire but unfortunately we don't have any continuation of the implementation of the Minsk process. The same I told you, the first decision which Putin should make is withdraw his troops from Ukraine and territory. And I think that the absolutely irresponsible behavior of Russia in Syria when he launched this separation this is continue to logic which we said even last year when first it was Crimea, second it was Lambast, third it is Syria. Fourth, maybe, I don't know, Afghanistan. And nobody knows where the Russian Green soldiers can appear in the very next moment.
ZAKARIA: Mr. President, you were seen recently in a Ukrainian plane that has been outfitted to NATO standards. And so I wonder, do you want Ukraine to become a member of NATO?
[10:10:00] POROSHENKO: This is very important question. Of course, I want a peace, security as a president for my country, for my people, especially in this situation where we're under attack of Russia, when we are object of the aggression. And NATO today is maybe the only most effective mechanism to provide security because after Russian aggression in my country they completely destroyed all post-war security system based on Mr. Putin charter and principles of the United Nations because when we have a situation one of the permanent member of the Security Council is an aggressor, that -- and he's using his veto right, that means that all mechanism which was created is not working. And now it is my responsibility to provide and implement reforming my country to transform the country to the NATO and then we will have these discussions. I think I need for there to be five, six years.
ZAKARIA: Mr. President, pleasure to have you on.
POROSHENKO: Thank you very much, indeed.
ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, last month saw the 9/11 anniversary, the Pope's visit to America and the United Nations General Assembly. All passed without incident. But just how much has the advent of ISIS increased the terror threat to the American homeland. I will talk to former New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:15:55] ZAKARIA: My next guest Ray Kelly is the longest serving police commissioner of New York City. He took office for the second time less than four months after the September 11th attacks. In the wake of that devastation one of his main charges was to keep New York safe from a future attack. He did just that.
"Vigilance" is the title of the book Kelly has just published recounting his 50 years in law enforcement. We talked about many things from terror to police misconduct to mass shootings and gun control. I started by asking him just how ISIS has changed the threat matrix against the United States.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAY KELLY, FORMER COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK CITY POLICE: ISIS has been a bit of a game changer. We haven't seen a terrorist entity with the resources that they've had, with their facility to use social media to get the word out to recruit. And obviously still effectively recruiting. They're brutality has certainly kept a lot of things in line in the Middle East.
So yes, I'm concerned about it. And I'm also concerned about a cyber terrorist vent, perhaps generated by them because they have shown this ability to use the Internet effectively.
ZAKARIA: When you think about this question of recruiting, and you ask yourself how would you figure out whether there are some either vulnerable or crazy or evil people out there, young people who might be attracted to this ideology, what should the FBI, police departments in the United States or in Europe be doing to try and figure out, because it seems like such a big attack? There's so many people who were alienated. Which ones of them are going to become jihadists? KELLY: Very difficult, very challenging. Something that has helped
in the past is monitoring of chat rooms and the NYPD because of our significant diversity. Police officers born 160 countries who are able to operate in those chat rooms. He gets some indication of young people who are talking the talk, so to speak. But it is no easy task, believe me.
ZAKARIA: I have to ask you about the stuff we've seen over the last few months in the United States with these videos. What do you think has gone wrong in so many of those cases where we saw the police acting in ways that the police should not act?
KELLY: Yes. Well, the thing that's changed, of course, is everybody over 10 years of age has a camera. And the whole video world has been a bit of a game changer.
ZAKARIA: Well, what worries people is that that's what's changed. Exactly as you said.
KELLY: Yes.
ZAKARIA: Which is that the police was always behaving like this.
KELLY: That's right.
ZAKARIA: But now we're getting a chance to see it.
KELLY: That's right. I don't believe that. But in some people's minds this is suspicious confirmed. It's always going on and now we have it captured by video. So this is sort of knocked the police back on their heel somewhat. A lot of introspection is going on in the police world. I personally believe that cameras worn by police officers are a good thing that I think will perhaps regain trust in a lot of the communities that quite frankly has been lost because of these horrendous videos particularly the murder of Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina.
And that was so egregious. We have an outright murder. And we have what appears to be planting of evidence. Of course that trial is coming up. We haven't had that yet. Now at least potentially police officers wearing cameras, they'll be able to see a beginning, a middle and the end. And I believe those cameras will show just a great preponderance of good work on the part of the police. Beneficial work.
ZAKARIA: When you look at these mass shootings in the United States. And you travel, you read a lot about what's going on around the world, you know, we have 20, 30, 40 times as many gun homicides as France and Germany does. What do you think?
[10:20:01] KELLY: I'm very pessimistic about it. When you take over 300 million guns that you have in the United States and you have as many as 40 million people, we're told, with significant mental issues, and you put that together, it's just a terrible combination.
ZAKARIA: If you had your way would you have stricter gun -- you know, background checks, all the kind of things that gun control advocates want?
KELLY: Yes. I think a lot of these things have been around for years. Years ago I was the other secretary of the treasury and ATF reported to me and we looked at issues as far as the gun show loophole, that's a big, big deal. At that time, this is in the late '90s, we said that almost 40 percent of crime guns were coming through the gun show loophole. It's narrow because the states have addressed the issue. But that to me and to most people seems like a no brainer. You know, the whole notion of going to a gun show that's there to sell guns and you and I are just casual buyers and sellers, and we don't have to go through a background check just doesn't make sense.
You would think that that issue could be addressed on both sides of the aisle in Washington. Wrong. They're not touching it or they -- so far they haven't wanted to go near the gun show loophole.
ZAKARIA: But you're pessimistic that much would get done?
KELLY: Unfortunately, yes. I think I'm generally optimistic but in the area of gun control I just don't see the will to do it. We'll look at the mass shootings for a couple of days in the press. And then, you know, there's a whole school of thought that says, you know, guns are the problem, not the people. And then this was no, the people are problems, not the guns. And that's sort of where we are in this country.
ZAKARIA: Ray Kelly, pleasure to have you on.
KELLY: Thank you. Good to be with you, Fareed.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, America was roundly criticized for its recent deadly bombing for a hospital in Afghanistan and rightly so. But we will take you to a war where observers allege even more civilians are being killed on a regular basis and the perpetrator of those alleged crimes is backed by the United States.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:25:58] ZAKARIA: Now for our "What in the World" segment. The world was outraged by the American military's recent bombing of a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz. President Obama personally apologized to the head of Doctors Without Borders which ran the hospital and offered condolences to Afghanistan's president.
But did you hear about a much worse airstrike last month when a wedding party was struck, killing 131 people? A few days later another wedding was hit killing more than 20 others according to local officials.
These were strikes in Yemen. The site of a massive Saudi air campaign. To refresh your memory back in January Yemen's president was ousted by Houthi rebels. The Saudi royal family panicked because the Houthis are Shiites. And was seen as a proxy force for Saudi Arabia's hated Shiite rival Iran. So Saudi Arabia and a coalition of its allies began punishing
airstrikes in March. The U.S. is part of the effort backing the Saudis with logistical and intelligence support for the strikes. According to the U.N. over 2,000 civilians have been killed since the Saudis joined the fight just a few months ago. The majority of them were allegedly hit by coalition airstrikes. By contrast only 16 percent of civilian deaths and injuries in Afghanistan were caused by pro-government forces in the first half of 2015. And only 1 percent were caused by international forces.
The Saudis have declared whole cities in Yemen to be its target, Amnesty International says. Their striking non-military targets with great frequency showing an appalling disregard for civilian lives, the group says, and there is damming evidence of war crimes despite Saudi's assertion to the contrary.
The U.S. doesn't say much about the strikes and it even failed to push through an independent U.N. investigation that the Saudis opposed. The result has been a humanitarian nightmare. Nearly 1.5 million Yemenis have been displaced and more than 21 million need humanitarian aid, the U.N. says. That is about 80 percent of the population. Entire cities lie in ruins and much of the country is on the brink of famine, the U.N. says, in part because the Saudis are blockading Yemen's ports.
It's not even clear why the U.S. should be helping the Saudis in the first place. Iran's involvement there is not strong or direct and the Yemeni president the United States hopes to restore to power may have been democratically elected but he was the only candidate on the ballot. In fact, this whole operation might be creating more terrorism.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has gained substantial ground in Yemen, thanks to all of this instability. What's odd is that the Houthis are bitter rivals of al Qaeda in Yemen and historically effective at fighting them. What's more ISIS is also gaining momentum amid this chaos, mounting suicide bombings all over the country. Saudi Arabia's actions are largely shaped by its intensely anti-Shiite and radical world view. One that has fed Sunni extremism for decades.
Why should the United States encourage and affirm a Wahhabi foreign policy?
Next on GPS, terror loves power vacuums like Yemen. In a moment you'll hear about the devastating terror group that's growing in a power vacuum in Africa. Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta will tell me about the threat his nation is facing from right next door.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:30:00] ZAKARIA: The East African nation of Kenya has seen great highs and great lows of lately. In April, Al Shabaab militants stormed across the porous border from Somalia and killed almost 150 people at a Kenyan University. That followed the infamous West Cape Mall siege, although by Al Shabaab that killed 67 people and lasted four days. In July, President Obama made his first trip as president to his
father's native land. In the weeks leading up to the president's arrival, the U.S. conducted drone strikes against Al Shabaab in their sanctuary of Somalia.
I recently had a chance to sit down with Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta to discuss terror, economics and playing host to President Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA: President Kenyatta, pleasure to have you on.
PRESIDENT UHURU KENYATTA, KENYA: Happy to see you.
ZAKARIA: Let's talk first about terrorism. The world has been astonished over the last few years to see the rise of first it was Al Qaeda-type affiliates, now it appears to be ISIS-type affiliates in Africa. Why is this happening?
KENYATTA: I think the best way to put this is that this is really and this is an argument being putting. This is not really a Kenyan situation.
[10:35:04]
KENYATTA: First of all, we've got to recognize the neighborhood that we live in. We have a fail state right next to our border. A state where there was no rule of law, there was no government. It was just an open vast land.
So when al Qaeda sort of took root, and they didn't take root in Kenya, they found in Somalia a haven where they could do their training, they could do almost anything.
ZAKARIA: You must have studies, though, this issue of why some Muslims get radicalized because you have a Muslim population in Kenya, and some have gotten radicalized. We must look at Boko Haram in Nigeria and think about the same thing. What is the answer? What is - what seems to be attractive to young men, particularly?
KENYATTA: One, let's put it that first and foremost, let's say that there may be genuine grievances they may have. But then on top of it, you've got this group of radical preachers, who come and give a very erupt (ph) view of religion, you know, at Friday mosque. You know, it's not telling them that what you're doing. You know you're doing for god. You are doing for, you know, it's for your religion and for God. Now, this is what we really got to focus ourselves on. You know, how do you make this not so attractive. We've got to start creating the Muslim leadership in the world to start saying no, Boko Haram, al Shabaab, Al Qaeda do not represent a true faith. This is the true faith.
ZAKARIA: Let me ask you about economics. For a while, Africa was seen as this great hope, but a lot of investors I talked to, a lot of businessmen say much of the reform that they had hoped would take place in Africa has stalled because, you know, between corruption and dysfunction and bad government, there is still so much of it in Africa that it's blocking progress. Would you agree with that?
KENYATTA: I would look at it differently. I would look at it and say that the Africa - still on. I would say that yes, indeed, we do have challenges. And the challenges has been - there is actual true realization that we need to reform our system to match the growth and to sustain the growth trajectory that was taken. This is why Kenyans chose for themselves a new constitution in 2010 that sought to reorganize the way we manage our business as a country. That's why they remove certain powers from the president and gave them to independent institutions to remove that personality-driven cult that one man controls the entire system. And I believe, this is working.
ZAKARIA: But people still say you are supremely powerful. You personally.
KENYATTA: Well, I don't know about supremely powerful, but if you actually look at the situation that we have today in Kenya and compare it to where we were before. That is actually, you know, not the case. I have no power to appoint or fire judges anymore. Really my rule is more or less a rubber stamp or saying that whatever the commission does. The judiciary has gained its independence. The same applies to the legislature. Now, where the issue of power comes from is what it says, oh, but you control parliament. But yes, it's true. We have a majority in parliament. We have that majority because the people chose to give that majority to the party to which I belong to.
ZAKARIA: When people talk about gay rights to you and President Obama did this on his visit there, you say, look, we have our culture. We have our traditions. Don't try to impose your values on us. The problem for many in the West is that it's not really seen as a matter of cultural values, it's seen as a matter of innate human rights that these people are, you know, that you are in effect depriving people of their rights, merely because of something that is God-given, that is - that they were born with. That there is increasing scientific evidence that this is the case. And why would you persecute people for something that they have ultimately no control on?
KENYATTA: Let me make it clear to you, I'll put it this way. All right? think first and foremost we're all saying that whatever society you come from, the principal aim is that you must give the people, you know, their right to choose. Now, where we are, and on the level of development that we are at, I am not saying that these people don't have their rights.
[10:40:05]
That's not what I'm saying. I am just saying that the majority, the majority in our society do not wish to legalize this issue of gay rights.
ZAKARIA: Can you persuade them?
KENYATTA: People in Kenya are not at this point entitled. And that's exactly what I said when we were with President Obama. To them this is not an issue. That they are going to put at the center. They have more pressing issues. However, that said I am also and will not allow people to persecute any individuals or to beat them or to torture them. Witch-hunts.
ZAKARIA: It isn't because ...
KENYATTA: No, what I'm saying witch hunts. What I'm saying is witch hunts. You know, we won't allow people to take the law into their own hands and harass and no, we won't. Every individual has the right to be protected by the law. And that's stated in our Constitution. But what we're saying is that as a society we do not accept some of these values. And this is where I'm saying we've got to get synergies. You're not going to create the United States of America or Great Britain or the Netherlands in Kenya or in Nigeria or in Senegal or overnight. And we were to understand that these are processes and they'll take time.
ZAKARIA: President Kenyatta, pleasure to have you on.
KENYATTA: It's been great.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA: Up next, Anne-Marie Slaughter says nobody would expect a male CEO to juggle his work responsibilities with parenting. So, why do we expect a female CEO to do just that? It's a very good question and one I will explore with her and the lead parent of her household, her husband, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAKARIA: Three years ago, Anne-Marie Slaughter, frequent guest here on GPS, published an article in "The Atlantic" that got a whole lot of people talking. Slaughter, a former top official at the State Department and now the president of The New America think tank, wrote a broad site against America sexist work policies in a piece titled "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." Now she's broaden it out into a terrific book, "Unfinished Business." It was my book of the week last week. As the book is about the different roles men and women play at work and at home. And how she and her husband juggle jobs and kids together. I invited Anne-Marie and her husband Andy Moravcsik to join me.
Welcome, guys.
ANDREW MORAVCSIK, PROFESSOR OF POLITICS, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Good to see you.
ZAKARIA: Anne-Marie, you argue in the book that things in the American workplace are much worse than people realize. It's a toxic environment. Why?
ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER, PRESIDENT & CEO NEW AMERICA: Well, what I say is that we don't make room for caregiving. That we used to have a world, in which men worked in the office and women stayed home and took care of people and those were sort of equally necessary activities and equally important. And now we have a world in which at least for 60 percent of American women, women are working as well as men, but we haven't changed the workplace. We haven't made any room for what is an essential human activity, but more women are doing it than men, which is care.
ZAKARIA: You look at the data that we see and you see THAT America has a real competitiveness problem, because women and men start out in education equally. In fact, women tend to do a little bit better.
SLAUGHTER: Yes.
ZAKARIA: After in college and graduate school. Starting out working pretty equally. And then it changes.
SLAUGHTER: Absolutely.
ZAKARIA: Ten years out women start dropping out of the workforce.
SLAUGHTER: Right.
ZAKARIA: Why?
SLAUGHTER: Well, and really historically, look at this, since the 1990s we're only at 20 percent of women in senior management. And that's in a really good industry. So, the drop off is dramatic. And the drop off is typically because women get shut out. Right? When they have kids and they are the lead parent then they need more flexibility. And - but either they get taken off leadership track when they take flexibility, because a lot of places have flexibility polices, but you certainly can't rise if you take them, or they just - the workplace is unwilling to accommodate what they need. So, they step out and we as a nation are losing huge amounts of talent. And the other big message of the book is we have got a halfway revolution. We have radically changed women's roles over my lifetime, which is roughly - with the women's movement, women have opportunities they've never had before in history. But men's roles are more or less where they were in the '50s. And that's an imbalance where you are expecting, when you look at a male CEO, he's expected to be completely on the job and he's got a lead parent at home. But when we have a woman CEO, somehow we're expecting her to be CEO and lead parent. That can't happen. So, if she's going to have a lead parent, in most cases it's going to be her husband, sometimes her wife, that's where we have to focus on changing rules.
ZAKARIA: And you say your career would not have been possible, if not for the fact that your husband was the lead parent?
SLAUGHTER: Absolutely.
ZAKARIA: So, first you're not just Anne-Marie's husband, you're also a tenured professor of European politics at Princeton University. What do you think we can learn from other countries? Particularly, Northern Europe? Is this a problem that can be solved with a few important governmental shifts?
MORAVCSIK: Not solely. But it will certainly help. The starting place is paternal leave, flexibility in the workplace and job security for people.
[10:50:00]
And we were fortunate to be in the academic profession where we have those things. So, for me the tradeoff between becoming a lead parent, taking care of the kids to a greater extent than Anne-Marie was not so incompatible with being successful in my career that I was unable to manage it. And that's what really made this possible. And it's certainly more possible to do that in countries like Sweden and Denmark than it is here in the United States today.
ZAKARIA: But does Europe have the kind of equality you'd expect at the higher levels, Andy? Because what I'm struck by is culture must also play a role. Europe has better laws, but frankly, in many ways I think opportunities just culturally are more available to women in America because of just the idea that anyone can succeed.
MORAVCSIK: That's right. So, the paradox about - of America is that many couples start out wanting to have 50/50 career opportunities for both members of the couple and 50/50 child care responsibility sharing. But they can't achieve it. Part of the reason is institutional and workplace related, but it's also cultural. We have values in this country where we don't feel that a man who takes those child care responsibilities and becomes the lead parent has the same legitimate standing in society that a woman does. Until we change those values, not many people are going to take advantage even of the opportunities that we make possible.
ZAKARIA: Do you think men would accept these changes?
MORAVCSIK: I do. I think it's in men's interest to accept these changes, because men are trapped the same way that we often think women are trapped. Women are trapped in a role, which is now a role of trying to do both the caregiving and for career women, working. Men are trapped in a role where they have to work and they can't choose to be caregivers as well. I found it tremendously rewarding to be able to step back from that a little bit and be a caregiver at the same time as I worked. And here is the truth that studies tell us. At the end of life, men look back and overwhelmingly say I wish I had spent more time caring for friends and family and less time doing the things that other people expected me to do in the workplace.
SLAUGHTER: Although it does lead to competitive parenting. Because now the boys text him more than they text me.
MORAVCSIK: It drives you crazy.
SLAUGHTER: It drives me nuts.
(LAUGHTER)
MORAVCSIK: That's the - of the leading parent.
ZAKARIA: Anne-Marie Slaughter, Andy Moravcsik, pleasure to have you both on.
MORAVCSIK: Thank you very much.
ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, ISIS this week issued a jihad against America and Russia, too, for good measure. But coming up, I will tell you about a jihad that intends to better the world. Not create more violence and bloodshed.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:57:00]
ZAKARIA: This week Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said the U.S. would hit the debt ceiling on November 3rd, earlier than predicted. The situation requires action, but when you compare the debt to the country's GDP, it's worse in other parts of the world, and it brings me to my question of the week. What country has the highest debt to GDP ratio? Zimbabwe, Greece, Lebanon, or Japan? Stay tuned. We'll tell you the correct answer.
This week's book of the week is Philip Tetlock's "Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction." If you're wondering if there's any way to predict an election, an economic crisis or even a war, Tetlock has an answer. He uses psychology and political science and a lot of common sense, and he taps into what's often called the wisdom of crowds. This is a fascinating book and it will make you think.
Now for the last look. What do a papal encyclical and an Islamic jihad have in common? No, this isn't the start of a bad joke. But I'll tell you. You'll probably recall that Pope Francis gave the call to action in his environmental encyclical this summer, in which he wrote these stinging words. "The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth." But you may not have heard about a similar call to action in a place home to too many piles of filth, including a dump so large, it is nicknamed the mountain. Senegal. According to Al Jazeera, an imam in Senegal has declared a green jihad. Yes, a jihad against pollution. He says protecting the environment is a moral calling. As the population of Africa grows, human health is increasingly put at risk by emissions and pollution. The World Health Organization attributed nearly 45,000 deaths of children under five years of age in 2012 to ambient air pollution in Africa. One photographer captured the African pollution problem with a collection of stunning images entitled the Prophesy. He depicts not only the danger of the situation in Senegal, but hope for a better future, as the Huffington Post pointed out.
You hear a lot from the science community about the dangers of climate change, but calls to action from artists or religious leaders are surely essential too. I for one am delighted that a devout Muslim religious leader is using the idea of jihad to call for positive action to better the environment and help human beings in this world.
The correct answer to our GPS challenge question was D, Japan. According to the IMF projections, the land of the rising sun will have nearly a 246 percent debt to GDP ratio this year. The United States is projected to be in 14th place, with a debt to GDP ratio of roughly 105 percent. Still not a prize by any stretch of the imagination.
Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I'll see you next week.