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Fareed Zakaria GPS
Interview with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani. Interview With Former U.S. Ambassador To Russia Michael McFaul; Interview With NYU Stern School Of Business Professor Scott Galloway; Interview With MIT Political Science Professor Mai Hassan. Aired 10-11:00a ET
Aired November 02, 2025 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:00:44]
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 from New York.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA: Today on the program, we'll look at paths to peace for three of the world's most volatile conflicts Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. First, the Gaza ceasefire was put to the test this week when Israel launched airstrikes after accusing Hamas of breaching the truce.
I will talk to the prime minister of Qatar, a man who has been key in brokering this deal about the ongoing negotiations and the prospects for a lasting peace.
Then what caused Trump to cancel his summit with Putin? Where do the prospects stand?
I will ask the former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul.
And Sudan's brutal civil war has caused the world's largest displacement crisis. Is this becoming a forever war? And what can be done to stop it?
Plus, we'll discuss what it means to be a modern American man with Scott Galloway.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA: But first, here's "My Take."
The Trump-Xi meeting in South Korea this week produced something worthwhile. A ceasefire in the trade war. But that's not the same as a peace deal. A longer term framework to manage the world's most consequential relationship. It paused escalation and bought time for both sides.
The crucial question now is how America will use that time. And the danger is that for some years now, Washington, under both Democrats and Republicans, has been playing by China's rules.
Over the last 10 years, Washington's response to China looks like an effort to beat Beijing by becoming Beijing -- restricting trade, directing supply chains, politicizing investment and wielding tariffs as instruments of presidential will. Some targeted de-risking is sensible, but push too far these measures play to China's strengths and corrode America's.
Donald Trump loves playing by China rules. He seems to admire Xi Jinping's power, personal discretionary, centralized. In his second term, he has threatened blanket tariffs, personally intervened in the semiconductor supply chain, demanded a government stake in intel, carved out special permissions for selling Nvidia chips in China, while taking a 15 percent cut for the U.S., and acted as the banker on TikTok's sale.
To some, this looks like strong deal-making. In truth, it's dangerously naive. China's system is built for state intervention. A recent analysis in the "Washington Quarterly" shows how Beijing has developed a hybrid coercion model, a mix of formal export controls and blacklists with old fashioned opaque pressure, custom slow roll safety bans, whispered orders to firms, its sanctions are deliberately vague without clear off-ramps, and can be dialed up or down without explanation.
Beijing weaponizes ambiguity. It has built a system calibrated for state leverage and political durability, not rule of law predictability. If the contest becomes one of arbitrary and centralized control, subsidies, threats, and discretion, China holds natural advantages. It fears neither constitutions nor markets nor elections.
If America makes this a test of centralized control, it is not likely to prevail. China can absorb pain. It can mobilize industry by fiat. It can impose costs without legal constraint. The U.S. cannot and should not govern that way. No democracy wins by imitating autocracy. America's strengths lie in rules, predictability and openness.
[10:05:04]
When the U.S. confronted Japan's technological challenge four decades ago, it did not win by building a national industrial ministry or picking corporate champions. It backed competition, welcomed talent, deepened alliances, protected antitrust, and unleashed venture capital. America didn't beat Japan by becoming Japan. It out-innovated Tokyo.
Yet today, remarkably, the U.S. is drifting toward the opposite conclusion. Trump's tariffs now cover all Chinese goods and increasingly sweep in products from friendly nations as well. The goal seems less to shape a rules based trading system than to simply assert presidential control. To show that markets move when Washington snaps its fingers.
That may delight a leader who enjoys deal-making and dominance, but it corrodes the norms that once made America the world magnet for talent and investment. The results are already visible in the region most central to the long-term balance with China, Southeast Asia. These nations want U.S. investment and presence to balance Beijing, and instead they see tariffs ramped up, aid reduced and episodic diplomacy.
Trump's time in Malaysia illustrated the pattern. He was focused on staging a ceasefire photo-op between Cambodia and Thailand, achieved through tariff threats, and left before major security summit took place. Meanwhile, China arrived offering trade upgrades and infrastructure investments, and it stayed through the final day. It's no surprise that "The Economist" reports that according to one study, nine of 10 Southeast Asian nations have grown more aligned with China in recent years.
America wins when it builds, not bludgeons. It should deepen ties with Europe and Asia, integrate the economy more closely with Democratic partners, invest broadly in semiconductor capacity and not specific companies, and maintain an open system that attracts the world's brightest minds.
America should reshape, not restrict, the global trading system. Strategic decoupling of the U.S. and China in critical technologies is necessary. National security demands it. But there is a world of difference between prudent guardrails and a presidency that treats the U.S. economy like the president's personal portfolio.
We have spent a century proving that innovation thrives in free societies more than in managed ones. If we make this rivalry a test of who can be more punitive, more closed, more centralized, and more state directed, China will feel right at home. If we make it a test of dynamism, open competition and free alliances, the outcome need not be in doubt.
The way to win is not to become China, but to remain America. In fact, to double down on what has always made America great.
Go to CNN.com/Fareed for a link to my "Washington Post" column this week, and let's get started.
In Gaza, the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has lasted more than three weeks, but now appears to be threatened. This week, Israel launched a series of strikes, saying they were partly in retaliation for the killing of one of their soldiers. Hamas denied any role in the attack and in turn accused Israel of breaking the ceasefire.
Qatar's prime minister and foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, has been the key go between on this deal and many others. We sat down together in New York on Thursday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA: Prime Minister, welcome back to the show.
MOHAMMED BIN ABDULRAHMAN BIN JASSIM AL-THANI, QATARI PRIME MINISTER: Thank you very much, Fareed, for having me. ZAKARIA: So tell us where we stand and what is going on with regard to
the ceasefire, because there do seem to be these violations. Then the Israelis attack. Are these violations serious? Are the Israeli counterattacks excessive? How would you characterize it?
AL-THANI: Well, first of all, I think that if we look at the deal itself, it's not -- it's not a simple deal. It's a very complex deal. And despite the ceasefire we had even in the previous ceasefire, which was in January, January 25th, we had a lot of violations and a lot of Palestinians being killed during that ceasefire.
The violations are happening every day. And we have, like we have the deconfliction room, the operation room that we did together with Egypt and the United States. We register everything over there.
[10:10:00]
So what happened yesterday, yes, there was a violation at the beginning, but then the attack was really disproportionate and was about to jeopardize the deal. But what we have seen, we have seen that, then both parties, we work together very closely with them in order to make sure that the ceasefire stay intact.
ZAKARIA: So you do have a ceasefire, fragile. You do have the hostages out. You do have largely the end of Israeli bombing. But to get to the next stage where you have massive reconstruction and all this requires some kind of force to replace what was the Hamas, the king of Jordan has just said that if there is going to be an Arab force, it is not going to go in there and, you know, and shoot Palestinians.
It wants to be involved in peacekeeping, not active, you know, suppression of violence. Is that -- is that realistic?
AL-THANI: Well, basically, when we are talking about international presence, international force presence, they should -- there should be a defined mandate. And we are working together with the United States in order to define the mandate of the international forces. And basically the international forces' role should be securing the Palestinians and the Israelis that both of them doesn't -- don't pose a threat for each other.
ZAKARIA: But does that mean you think that the Jordanians or Egyptians or forces from the UAE will come and be willing to take over in Gaza? And I say, if there is some Hamas presence or some militia or some guy with an AK-47, are they going to shoot Palestinians?
AL-THANI: Well, here we go back to the question of the Palestinian agency. Now when we were discussing the 20 points document that President Trump has laid, we made sure that the interaction between the Gazans and the rest is to be -- the interface should be a Palestinian interface, whether it's a Palestinian police, Palestinian administration, and everything international should remain in the background as a guarantor and as a safeguard for this agreement to take place.
Now, no one expect from an Arab force or an Islamic force to go there and to shoot on Palestinians. But the role of guaranteeing the security should be taken care by the Palestinian police, which will be formed in Gaza.
ZAKARIA: So a lot of people think that one of the reasons Prime Minister Netanyahu did not want the Palestinian Authority, which runs things in the West Bank, to be involved in Gaza is that he doesn't want a unified Palestinian entity that, in a sense, governs both the West Bank and Gaza because that begins to sound like a Palestinian state.
Would it make more sense for the Palestinian Authority to take over these functions?
AL-THANI: Well, actually, we want the Palestinian Authority to be, the single agency for the Palestinians to take care of Gaza and the West Bank. Right now there were ongoing talks between all the Palestinian factions, including Fatah and the PA, in order to make sure that this technocratic committee, it's apolitical. It will take care of Gaza in this transition period, and it will be linked somehow to the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Authority, once the reforms are in place, the Palestinian Authority should take over the governance in Gaza and the West Bank together.
We cannot separate those two units. Those are one unit. Those are the future Palestinian state. Look, Fareed, whatever we do, whatever we say, there are wishful thinking from some politicians, maybe in Israel, that there are other solutions other than the two-state solution. There is no solution except the two-state solution. How can we figure out the formula where two people, they can live side by side together and feel safely?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, Qatar has faced a barrage of criticism, particularly from some of President Trump's allies, for its close ties to Hamas and Iran. How does Qatar's prime minister explain these relationships? I ask him.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:19:14]
ZAKARIA: The Gulf nation of Qatar is smaller than the state of Connecticut, yet it has played an outsized role in mediating conflicts from Gaza to Yemen to Venezuela to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Here's more of my conversation with Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani. I asked him how a small nation like Qatar became so pivotal in all these negotiations.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AL-THANI: Well, it's -- look, I think that, you know, there are a lot of factors when we look at Qatar's national security and foreign policy doctrine. Qatar is a small country. And we -- from our perspective, each country in the international community needs to contribute something to the international community.
[10:20:07]
We found ourselves that we are able to convene between conflicted parties and understand the grievances that between them and try to address them step by step. And we've been -- we've built a track record of credibility and honesty with -- and transparency with those parties. That's what makes Qatar become -- becoming a destination for mediation.
We started building our experience in the region, but then it extended beyond that. When the Israeli attack happened in Qatar in 9th of September, there were other mediations ongoing. DRC and Rwanda. The Colombians were arriving at that time. So mediation is part of our identity as a country. It's part of our national security doctrine, and it's enshrined in our constitution, actually, that Qatar should always seek diplomacy as a way to resolve conflicts, not the use of force.
ZAKARIA: So you get criticized for, you know, having relations with Hamas. You get criticized for being -- people often see you as close to Iran. Explain the nature of your relationship with Iran.
AL-THANI: Iran is my neighbor. Iran is just 150 miles away from me. I share with them the largest gas field in the world. Iran is part of our region, and I have to deal with them. And we would like to see Iran flourishing and developing and prospering and, of course, we don't want to see an arms race in our region. We don't want to see a nuclear race in our region. That's why we've been supporting diplomacy all the time that Iran reached a deal with the U.S. and the Europeans in order to get this nuclear program under the supervision and to make sure that it's a peaceful program.
So that's the responsibility that Qatar is taking in reaching out and tackling these issues, trying to help to mediate and to resolve these issues.
ZAKARIA: You know, there are criticisms made of you in the United States, including from President Trump's sort of side of the -- of the political spectrum. And people wonder, was the United States's guarantee that you got, security guarantee from President Trump a payback for President Trump accepting the Qatari plane? What's your response?
AL-THANI: There is no relation at all between those two topics. First of all, this plane issue I've been answering it like many times. U.S. is our partner and our ally, and this -- the plane happened. It's a government-to-government agreement, which is normally happening between us and any other governments also around the world.
U.S. is our ally. And we've been growing this relationship and developing it in a lot of areas, not only in security and defense, but also in energy and economy and education, in many aspects. When you look at the security guarantees that we got from United States this is a guarantee for the United States interest as well, which are in the region, which are in Qatar, either it's about the air base that, you know, that we are hosting or there we are hosting more than 10,000 U.S. soldiers.
American universities are there in Qatar. American energy companies are operating in Qatar. So the security guarantee is just a demonstration of the strategic relationship between Qatar and the United States.
ZAKARIA: And the plane stays with the U.S. government and doesn't go to President Trump's?
AL-THANI: This is a government-to-government deal. It's defense, Ministry of Defense of Qatar with the Department of Foreign United States.
ZAKARIA: Prime Minister, pleasure to have you on again. Thank you.
AL-THANI: Thank you very much, Fareed. Thank you for having me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin's storied bromance appears to have soured. I'll ask former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, what's behind the shifting dynamic between the two leaders, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:29:08]
ZAKARIA: After years of somewhat inexplicable chumminess, President Trump's relationship with Russia's President Vladimir Putin appears to be at an all-time low. In the past week, Putin has announced the tests of two nuclear powered weapons. This comes after Trump canceled a summit with Putin last week after suggesting it might be a waste of time. Instead, he sanctioned Russia's two largest oil companies.
Joining me now is Michael McFaul, a former ambassador to Russia and the author of a fascinating new book, "Autocrats Versus Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder."
Mike, pleasure to have you on. So first, unravel this puzzle for us. You know, your colleague at Stanford, General McMaster, who served as Trump's National Security adviser, said in his memoirs that after working for Trump every day for over a year, the one puzzle he couldn't figure out was why Trump had such a soft spot for Putin. So, what do you think has happened that Trump has changed -- seems to have changed his tune?
MICHAEL MCFAUL, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA: Well, first, Fareed, it's great to be back with you. Thanks for having me.
I agree with McMaster, I remember. And he's now with us out at Stanford that was a through line. It's one of the consistent pieces of his foreign policy. And I think it was based on a couple of things.
Ideologically, the two men align. They see the world in similar ways. And Trump -- he doesn't divide the world between autocrats and Democrats like I do. He divides the world between strong leaders and weak leaders, and people that praise him and people that don't. And in that worldview, he got along with Putin.
But lately, Putin has been playing him. And I think President Trump has finally figured out that Putin is playing him, that he doesn't want to do a deal with him, that he doesn't consider him to be his friend. And thankfully, he's now pivoting in a different direction.
ZAKARIA: What do you think accounts for the original sort of Trump view of Putin, which is still very strong? You say and you point out in your book that, you know, Russia has sort of an odd -- it's a -- it's a very different case than China. The U.S. economy is 13 times the size of Russia's.
You point out that even in areas like science and technology, where the Soviet Union used to be very strong, Russia is now on, you know, one of these tech indexes. U.S. is number one. China is number two. Russia is 29.
Do you think this shows us that Trump is sort of a creature of the 1980s? You know, he thought of -- the job of the U.S. president, after all, was like Nixon did to meet Brezhnev, like Reagan did to meet Gorbachev. And similarly, he wants to be going mano a mano with the president of Russia, Moscow, whatever.
MCFAUL: That's definitely a part of it, Fareed. The second piece, I think, was that Trump likes people he considers strong leaders. And I think to your point, Putin is not a strong leader. He uses what he has in very revisionist imperial ways. He doesn't have the capabilities of the Chinese, but he uses them more aggressively.
But Trump always thought of Putin as being the strong guy. And I think that was an incorrect assessment. And I hope he stays with his new assessment and then back up rhetorically with actual policies. So yes, he sanctioned a couple of Russian companies, but we're not providing new military assistance to the Ukrainians. I think we should.
ZAKARIA: So given where we are, you're right, a little bit more economic pressure on the Russians, but no real military pressure. But the Ukrainians are fighting fiercely. They have not given -- they've given almost no ground all of this year. What do you think happens, Mike?
I mean, don't -- I know you're a passionate supporter of Ukraine and are very well known in that country as such, but I want you to put on your social scientist hat and tell me, what do you think is the most likely outcome?
MCFAUL: So, Fareed, as you know as well as I do, because you've written a lot of big books on global politics, wars tend to end in two different ways. Either one side wins and dictates the terms, or there's a stalemate on the battlefield.
Right now, neither of those conditions are present. The Russians are not winning, but they are making incremental gains. Thousands of soldiers have to die every day for that. And in Putin's view, that's enough. He wants to keep fighting. He faces no domestic opposition to that.
So, I think to create the permissive conditions for a ceasefire, we have to give Ukrainians more abilities to stop that Russian army on the ground. And when that happens, then I think Putin will negotiate.
But he's banking on two things. One, that he cares more about Ukraine than we and our European allies do. And two, Putin's trying to wait us out. We get bored with this. We move on, and then he conquers all of the pieces of Ukraine.
But remember, he already -- in a big fanfare event in Moscow, already on paper, said they're part of Russia. I think he's going to keep fighting either until he can no longer fight or until he conquers all of those pieces that on paper he's already annexed.
ZAKARIA: So, unlikely to be a peace deal any time soon, is what you're saying. This is going to drag on.
MCFAUL: Exactly, exactly. Yes, tragically. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see it ending anytime soon.
ZAKARIA: Mike McFaul, as I said, fascinating book. Everyone should go out and read it. Thank you.
MCFAUL: Thanks for having me.
ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, by many measures, young men are falling behind, education, work, relationships. But according to NYU's Scott Galloway, society has misdiagnosed why. What is really driving this male crisis? He will tell us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:39:38]
ZAKARIA: There is a loneliness epidemic in America. Nearly one in five adults say that they often feel lonely. But the group suffering the most are young men. One in four young men in America report feeling lonely. This crisis is also proving fatal where young men are almost four times as likely to commit suicide than young women.
[10:40:00]
What is going on? Scott Galloway is an NYU professor and host of several very popular podcasts, including "The Prof G" podcast. His new book is called "Notes on Being a Man."
First of all, really terrific book, very personal. It weaves in your own life with all kinds of advice. I really -- I would recommend it to all men, but to really anyone.
SCOTT GALLOWAY, PROFESSOR, NYU STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: That means a lot coming from you. Thank you.
ZAKARIA: So, Charlie Kirk, one of his appeals, I always thought, was that he gave young men a kind of purpose. He would talk to them and say, you have dignity, you have agency, and you need to do the following. You need to provide for your family. You need to, you know, get out of the bar and pick up the Bible.
Whether you agreed with it or not, I think, one of the things that resonated was that young men look around in their post-industrial world and say, what is my role?
GALLOWAY: Yes. Yes, I think that to the right's credit, they recognize the problem. And I think a lot of young men felt seen. And if you look at how the kind of Democratic Party, I would argue, lost a lot of young men to the right, it's not because they moved to the Republican Party. It's because they felt like the Democratic Party moved away from them.
And unfortunately, while the right deserves credit for recognizing the problem, I worry that sometimes their solution is to take us back to the 50s, where women and non-whites didn't have as much opportunity. And I think that the right if we're going to talk about the crisis of masculinity, oftentimes conflates incorrectly masculinity with coarseness and cruelty, and then the left's answer is, well, just act more like a woman, which isn't helpful either.
So, there definitely seems to be a vacuum of establishing a more aspirational form of masculinity. But Charlie tapped into it. He helped young men feel seen.
ZAKARIA: What do you do about the reality that in this kind of new work environment, in these new areas of work, it is true that, you know, physical strength matters less. Even some of the alpha male attributes matter less.
GALLOWAY: Yes.
ZAKARIA: You know, women seem to do better at school.
GALLOWAY: Yes.
ZAKARIA: But even increasingly better at work.
GALLOWAY: Yes.
ZAKARIA: I mean, is that a -- is that sort of baked in and what do we do about it?
GALLOWAY: There's just no doubt about it. Over the next five years, we're probably going to graduate two women from college for every one man. And this creates all sorts of sociological knock-on effects.
Women still -- in society still disproportionately evaluate a man based on his economic viability. I think there's a lot we can do. One just basic tax policy. Two biggest tax deductions, mortgage interest rate, and capital gains. Who owns homes and stocks? People our age. Who rents and makes their money from work? Young people.
As a result, all of these policies have basically resulted in -- despite remarkable prosperity, people over the age of 70 are 72 percent wealthier, and people under the age of 40 are 24 percent less wealthy. So, they just have less money, and very few of them can afford a home, very few can afford college. So, all the means of getting ahead and starting to save and project yourself as a provider are slowly but surely eroding.
And women are blowing by men. And we should do nothing to get in the way of that. It's absolutely wonderful. But at the same time, we have to recognize the country and women will not continue to flourish if men are flailing.
ZAKARIA: You talk in the book about some of the advice. You know, you practice what you preach because you've got two boys.
GALLOWAY: Yes.
ZAKARIA: What do you think is the most important thing you're trying to inculcate in them in terms of values?
GALLOWAY: The moment a boy loses a male role model, he becomes, at that moment, more likely to be incarcerated than graduate from college. So, a lot of it, Fareed, is just showing up and just being present in their lives.
But I have a series of hacks. I think masculinity is three legs of the stool. I think it's -- to be a provider, I think, you need to be economically viable through finding something that you can focus on, getting certification. But I think it's a decent idea at a young age to assume you're going to need to take economic responsibility for your household, which sometimes means getting out of the way and being more supportive of your partner, who might be better at that money thing than you.
To always have a move to protection, your default should be protection. If you see any community or any person being threatened or demonized, which even includes talking critically behind someone's back, a man's move should be to protection always. And this is what bothers me about some of our leaders now is I don't think their default operating system is one of protection.
And also, and this is the one that gets more pushback, procreation. I think it's wonderful for young men to want romantic and quite frankly, sexual experiences. As long as that fire is channeled in the right ways, dress better, be stronger, have a plan, demonstrate kindness, be willing to take risks. So, I try in certain ways, first and foremost, to be present, but also to tell them about, I think, what it means to be a man, we have these things, this is what it means to be a man.
ZAKARIA: So, when your teenage boys hear all this do they push back? Do they say you're full of (EXPLETIVE DELETED), dad?
[10:45:02]
GALLOWAY: Yes, that's called being a teenage boy, 100 percent. Yes, my boys are very unimpressed by my advice. It's -- I mean, you have kids, right? You realize they're more inclined to listen to your friends. I mean, so, yes, there's a lot of eye rolling. They're not -- they're not impressed.
ZAKARIA: Though what I find is in life, in parenting, you know, people pay attention to what you do more than what you say.
GALLOWAY: Yes.
ZAKARIA: So, if you're living that life then --
GALLOWAY: Model it. Yes.
ZAKARIA: And in any case, for all the rest of us, I could say, really wonderful advice.
GALLOWAY: Thank you, Fareed.
ZAKARIA: Thank you, Scott Galloway.
GALLOWAY: Thanks for having me.
ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, more than 450 people were killed in a hospital this week. It is part of a dramatic escalation in Sudan's brutal civil war, a war that's been going on for more than two years. It is a terrible conflict you are unlikely to know much about. We will tell you about it when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:50:31]
ZAKARIA: One of the most devastating conflicts in the world is unfolding in Sudan right now, and it receives little coverage in mainstream media. Civil war has ravaged the country for more than two years, killing more than 150,000 people and displacing a staggering 14 million or more.
This week saw a horrific escalation. The Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, a Sudanese paramilitary group, massacred hundreds of civilians in El Fasher, the besieged and famine struck city in the country's Darfur region. Prospects for peace between the warring parties, the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces, seem further away than ever, especially as international backers continue to fund the conflict.
Joining me now to tell us more is Mai Hassan, a Sudanese native and a political science professor at MIT. Such a pleasure to have you on.
MAI HASSAN, POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR, MIT: Thanks so much for having me, Fareed.
ZAKARIA: So, let's start with 2019. Bashir, Sudan's dictator, is overthrown. And it seems like the country is on a path to democracy. What happened? What went wrong?
HASSAN: Yes, 2019 was this jubilant time. The people had come together, hundreds of thousands in the streets to overthrow this 30- year Islamist Muslim brotherhood regime. And once they left, the civilians really elevated their civilian politicians and tasked them to work with the security apparatus, largely the army, to fashion a transitional government and transition the country to democracy. And it was this really beautiful moment.
But then in October of 2021, the army, General Burhan, overthrew that government, sidelined civilian politicians and took control over the country and the transition.
ZAKARIA: And then you started to have essentially a faction within the army or kind of special guard, right? Like the -- the armed forces almost broke up and then began a civil war.
HASSAN: Yes, exactly. So, once the civilians were sidelined, once after this counter-revolutionary coup, we start to see the security apparatus start to fragment. We have the Sudan Armed Forces on the one hand, SAF, and the Rapid Support Forces, the RSF, on the other, and they are really starting to come to head against each other about who should be governing Sudan.
ZAKARIA: And what about the role of foreign countries? Why are they involved? Why is the UAE involved? Why is Russia involved?
HASSAN: The UAE has been involved in Sudan since 2014 because of gold exploration, a little bit of agricultural business in Sudan, using Sudanese troops to fight the war in Yemen, and they have been strongly supporting the RSF militarily, though, I should say that they allege these claims. And then, on the other hand, we have Egypt and Saudi, in particular, supporting the Sudan Armed Forces.
You know, Sudan is very strategic when we think about its position in the world. It's on the Red Sea. If we think about the Red Sea, shipping lanes. It's going to be important for -- to ensure security there. It's at the crux of North Africa and the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa.
ZAKARIA: When you look at the level of suffering that's taking place, people getting exhausted, can this go on for another 10 years?
HASSAN: It's just truly awful the level of devastation that Sudanese people have been put through. As you were saying, hundreds of thousands have been killed, tens of millions have been displaced, hunger level leaving -- reaching dire conditions. And it's unclear how much more the Sudanese people can take.
And so, when we think about this war, there's all this pressure from below to try to get it to stop. But in part because of this external funding and because of this influence by these external actors I don't know how it's going to end without also foreign pushes.
ZAKARIA: What is the key to long term peace?
HASSAN: You know, in my mind, I think what we -- what we need to see is a Sudan that is run by civilians. One in which when we think about the negotiations that need to come about, when we think about the political process, civilian actors have to be at the table that are really pushing to end this war and transition Sudan to democracy.
[10:55:02]
ZAKARIA: I mean, the whole thing sounds kind of bleak. It doesn't sound like there's a short-term solution.
HASSAN: I'm more hopeful than that. I think that the U.S. and Western powers can really help bring an end to this crisis. Again, this war started because of Sudanese actors. But given the leverage that the west has over not just each of the belligerents, but each of the belligerents' regional backers, I really think that -- especially the U.S. has quite a bit of leverage to force the regional backers to force their belligerents to come to the table and negotiate something.
You know, we think about -- it's well known that President Trump is hoping for a Nobel Prize. And the conflict in Ukraine, the conflict in Gaza, those seem much more intractable than the one in Sudan. In a sense, it'd be a lot easier to solve that crisis, given the leverage that the U.S. has over the UAE, Saudi Arabia.
ZAKARIA: Thank you, Mai. That was fascinating and insightful.
HASSAN: Thank you so much for having me.
ZAKARIA: And thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.
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