your business from anywhere. the others? nope! get internet on our gig-speed network and add voice and tv for $34.90 more per month. call or go online today. this is gps, the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. changing the subject. trump attacks iran. is trump ready to wage war on the islamic republic, as one of his tweets suggested? is there a new strategy to topple tehran? i'll talk to the experts. and a new leader elected by the world's sixth largest nuclear power. the former playboy cricketer

will now run the islamic republic of pakistan. what does it mean for that nation, for india, for the world? then is the world stressing you out and bringing you down? it is for college students who are seeking more counseling than ever before. lori sanders is here to help, teaching yale's most popular course on the science of happiness. but first, here is my take. listen closely. >> this is why we agreed today, first of all, to work together toward zero tariffs, zero nontariff barriers and zero subsidies on nonauto industrial goods. thank you. >> what you just heard from wednesday's joint press conference between the presidents of the european commission and the united states was the sound of donald trump

backtracking once again. this has become a familiar routine. it goes something like this. begin by hurling insults at the other side, some which have a basis in reality but are mostly wild exaggerations, threaten extreme consequences, then meet with the other side, backpedal and triumphantly announce that you have saved the world from a crisis that your rhetoric and actions caused in the first place. call it the donald trump two-step. think about his alcohols with regard to north korea. he began by calling kim jong-un a mad man who doesn't mind starving or killing his people while tweeting fire and fury. gushing about how the ew north korean people absolutely love their dictator and how trump absolutely trusts him. same thing with the european union, that he only recently described as worse than his

enemies. now after meeting with jean-claude, he says the eu and u.s. obviously love one another. seemingly bizarre sbun predictable behavior is part of a canny and wise strategy, that he's playing a four-dimensional chess, operating in space time. if so, he's getting badly beaten here on earth. in none of these situations has he actually been able to extract real concessions and there is a cost to this bluster and flip flopping. trump is creating a reputation for the united states as erratic, unpredictable, unreliable and fundamentally hostile to the global order. leader after leader in europe has made this clear. george osbourne told me when he was britain's finance minister, you knew the united states president had your back. the most tangible data

suggesting that the united states is losing its good reputation comes from the economist adam poser. he argues that countries are bypassing the united states and constructing a post-american world economy. you can see this in the flurry of trade agreements that don't include the u.s., from the transpacific partnership, which was signed minus america to the trade deal the european union just signed with japan and many others that are in the works. the most dramatic indication of the world side stepping the u.s., he says, is the decline in foreign investment in america. it has fallen off a chif, he to told me. net foreign investment into the u.s. has dropped by half since 2016. perhaps some of the decline is part of a longer term trend. other countries are growing faster than the u.s. but for decades, that reality has been countered by another reality. that among the world's rich nations, america was eunique in

having strong growth prospects coupled with stable, predictable, pro-market policies. trump's attacks on trade, allies, his willingness to punish and reward individual companies and general unreliability all add up to a picture of policymaking that looks like that of an erratic developing company run by a strong man. the difference is america's strong man has the power to disrupt the entire global economy. for more tog to cnn.com/fareed and read my washington column this week. and now, let's get started. >> is the war between the united states and iran actually possible? the leaders of the two enemy nations have been threatening each other, since last weekend. it all began last sunday when iran's president, hassan rouhani

said the war between two nations would be the mother of all wars. president trump, of course, responded late that night with a tweet that said, in all caps, never, ever threaten the united states again, or you will suffer consequences the like of which few throughout history have ever suffered before. iran's foreign minister responded similarly, in all caps, color us unimpressed. and the leader of iran's powerful force threatened thursday if trump began a war, it would be iran that ended it. tough talk. joining me now, robin wright, contributing writer at the new yorker and fellow at the woodrow wilson center, and the author of losing an enemy, now senior fellow at the foundation for the defense of democracies. robin, what do you make of the

tweets and is this a new policy? >> well, clearly, there's escalating tension between washington and tehran. what the administration believes the revolutionary government in iran is vulnerable and escalating the pressure economically, in terms of intelligence information campaign. it's gaming that the regime will be under such pressure it will have to go back to the negotiating table to talk, not just about the nuclear weapons program but also the wider array of issues we have with tehran, including human rights practices, its missile test, its meddling in the region, and the danger is that the iranians do not respond in a way that wads wa -- washington wants. the question becomes what else? is this a repeat of the momentum that we felt in the run-up to the war with iraq? the danger is that this is not north korea, this is not iraq.

iran is very sophisticated and has very important oil assets and the other five members of the team negotiated with iran for this historic nuclear deal have said they're going to stick to it. that includes britain, germany, china, france and russia. >> mike pompeo also made a speech and that seemed to outline and reemphasize what robin is saying. this is a new policy toward iran. >> we do have new policy, walking away from the jc -- the president and secretary pompeo have said they want to have new negotiations with the islamic republic. certainly much of what they're doing makes sense if you are adopting some type of regime

change approach. >> which you applaud? >> i do. i think it's the correct way to go, particularly at this time. i do believe that the islamic republic is internally weak and makes sense to deprive them of our currency. >> trita, i'm guessing you disagree. >> i disagree with the idea that the you tats is in a position and has the capacity to do a regime change in iran that would lead to a better government in iran, the iranian people certainly want to see democracy and are deeply frustrated with the current state of the country. but where is the last time, give me an example, of the united states doing a regime change in the middle east, that led to a proper democracy? i fear that the attempt at re g regime change -- i do agree with reuel, when you see everything that's happening, it's not compatible with the strategy for diplomacy, but some form of attempt at regime change. it might be a worse scenario, regime collapse.

they might not try to replates government, just collapse the current government and allow the chaos inside of iran enable the balance of power in the regime to shift away from iran, which certainly would be to the benefit of saudi arabia and israel and would be to their preference. >> but would cause a lot of disorder in an already disorderly middle east? >> and tremendous amount of disorder in the country and set back the cause for democracy in iran at least one generation. it's difficult to to be able to see the u.s.'s involvement, particularly the trump administration's involvement, leading to a better scenario for democracy in iran. >> very quickly on this point, we've been pretty good at getting rid of bad regimes. we've been very bad at putting in a good, that is democratic regime, if you think about iraq and all these examples where it's been much harder to -- easy to get rid of a bad regime and much harder to bring democracy

somewhere. >> you do have to have patience. most striking about iraq, the democratic system in iraq, as flawed as it is, hasn't disappeared yet. the mistake there was that we pulled out. we should have stayed. >> for how long? >> we have to be patient. and, obviously, the americans have, i think, a short attention span for these things, and certainly in the middle east, which is very demanding. >> do we really? we're still on the banks of iran, still in osaka and south korea, places where it makes sense because you're deterring an outside threat or anchoring the country. these are cases where you're trying to engage in a quasi colonial occupation, which is very difficult. look into afghanistan. is it better today than it was? >> i would argue that the intrusion of the united states into the iraqi government was less than probably what you had in germany after world war ii.

you know, i would say that the more the united states is there, the better. >> robin, let me ask you, the point at which there seems to be some agreement is that what we're headed for is a kind of regime change like strategy. press iran, probably economically, but not -- the united states is not going to go into syria, yemen, lebanon to push back against iran. what you end up with is trita right, regime collapse and a very messy kind of situation? >> one of the things that everyone in washington is concerned about is what happens even if you get to the point that the regime is confronted, is vulnerable, does begin to either collapse or deteriorate? and there is no identifiable opposition group that has emerged that is popular at home. and so one of the question is, who would replace the regime? this is a country that has 80 million people. it borders not just the middle east but south asia, central

asia. it is one of the most geostrategic properties in the world and has a good deal to say what happens on the strait of hormuz, through which a huge amount of the world's exports flow. so those of us who live a long way away, it is important. we're still militarily stressed whether in afghanistan, iraq, south korea, germany, that we don't have the resources to rebuild a country like iraq, much less a place like syria, which will have to be reconstructed at some point. and the idea of reconstructing another war zone is very daunting. so, whether it's just the collapse of the regime because of its inefficiencies, the opposition within or some kind of military campaign, plan b, what happens next, is a very unclear and in some ways the most frightening aspect of this issue. >> when we come back, we'll ask, what is actually happening inside iran? is the regime getting weaker or

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and we are back. robin wright, trita parisi and reuel join gerecht join me.

>> against the regime, against all parts of the regime. they yell death to rouhani, as much as they do death to the supreme ruler. i think the society is fraying rather profoundly and it's important to remember that iran has had over 100-year quest of search for increasing representative government. it is unique, actually, in the middle east. and i think we should pay attention to that. and we should realize that though the islamic republic has brutalized iranian society as did the shah before it, you still have a very powerful, i would argue, current greater democratic expression. >> trita? >> without a doubt the desire for democracy is very strong. they're the ones who have been pushing to move the country in that direction. the question is, will any

interference or efforts from the outside help or undermine it? invariably in the 100-year quest we've seen for intervention, it's always set back the iranian people's aspirations. the 1953 intervention to unseat the democratically elected prime minister is the prime example. the government itself so far, we're not seeing any signs of panic. certainly a tremendous amount of discontent and protests that look very different from with an we saw in 2009. this is coming from the smaller cities that have not reached tehran yet, a class that is usually seen as being supportive of the regime. if there are efforts from the outside to fuel protests. >> robin, where do you come out on this? the united states pressure, does it help the iranian regime in a

way that, for example, it helped the castro regime in cuba, because they can say they were battling the americans and american pressure, or is it, at the end of the day, pressure is pressure and it weakens the regime? >> probably both. the biggest pressure on the iranian regime comes from within. the fact that the majority of the voters today were born after the revolution and this is one of the most connected societies. it has a very sophisticated polity. they are aware of what happens in the rest of the world. they don't want to be a pariah and don't want to see their currency halved as it has in the past year. they want to buy their western goods and don't want to be stuck with inferior chinese stuff. i do think we're reaching a turning point. in august and again in november, u.s. sanctions go in effect. first, not just on iranian goods

but any company that does business from any country with iran. and so this will undermine even those countries that have stuck to the nuclear deal, the companies in those countries are going to feel pressure not to deal with iran, because then they can't sell their goods to the united states. you see big global companies, france's totale, germany's siemen's. the pressure will mount. will there be this confluence of factors that really undermine the regime? just a year ago you saw almost 77% of the population in iran turn out for a presidential election, much higher than it was in the u.s. presidential election a year before that. there are still people willing to participate in a system a year ago. whether the system can collapse quickly, i think, is a big question. >> i think one thing we could be sure is the pressure is mounting and this is going to be a story

to watch. thank you. thank you very much. >> next on gps, trump's tariff war and why it won't work. back in a moment. imer's associan walk to end alzheimer's, we carry flowers that signify why we want to end the disease. and we walk so that one day, there will be a white flower for alzheimer's first survivor. join the fight at alz.org/walk. i never thought i'd say this but i found bladder leak underwear that's actually pretty. always discreet boutique. hidden inside is a super absorbent core that quickly turns liquid to gel. so i feel protected and pretty. always discreet boutique. wlet's do it. ?

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now for our what in the world segment. a lot has changed in american politics over the last 30 years, but there's one thing you can always count on, republicans hating taxes. >> read my lips. no new taxes. >> tax increases destroy jobs. >> we've made history by massively reducing job-killi ii taxes. >> it turns out there's a certain job-killing tax trump actually loves, tariffs. tariffs are pretty much the same as taxes, which is why free-market economists from adamson onward have hated them. when trump puts a tariff on a foreign good, what he is doing is taxing that good, making it more expensive for americans. take, for example, trump's tariffs on imported steel.

it's true this would help americans who make steel, because their competitors' products coming in from abroad would be more expensive. but there are only about 150,000 american workers who make steel. that is dwarfed by the 6.5 million americans who work in industries that buy and depend on cheap steel, writes douglas irwin, dartmouth economist of foreign affairs. including everything from small tool manufacturers to large defense firms. goldman sachs says general motors and ford could each lose $1 billion this year because of the steel tariffs. the trump administration is looking into tariffs on another $200 billion worth of chinese goods and has threatened automobile tariffs on allies. creating 200,000 jobs, according to the peterson institute. listen to larry summers.

>> this is the least well-conceived economic policy that the united states has pursued since the period before the great depression. >> so why even start these tariff wars? >> don't blame the administration. don't blame japan. don't blame europe. blame china. >> well, china is a trade cheat that breaks the rules and bends others, as i have often said. these are problems. but trump's tariffs are not the answers. in mid june, the united states announced tariffs on $50 billion worth of chinese imports. the overwhelming majority of them were on what's known as intermediate goods. in other words, parts for things like computers or cars or on machines used to build them. those are the kind of tariffs that will raise costs for manufacturers in the u.s. and the peterson institute found that those same tariffs would primarily target multinational

companies operating in china, many of which are american, not chinese companies. the chinese europeans and canadians have all retaliated and their tariffs are much smarter. they target final products that will affect americans directly. kentucky bourbon, harley davdson motor si motorcycles, all seen as potent national symbols and many are located in the republican heartland. targeting them is designed to mobilize powerful republican legislators who have to answer to those voters. the best way to get china to reform its trade practices is for the united states, europe and other allies to work together. instead, the united states is forcing its allies into china's arms and many republicans are standing on the sidelines, as donald trump overturns yet one more of the defining ideologies

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plaguing pakistan for decades and showing no signs of abating. the former cricket player turned politician has been strongly anti-american and such sentiments in pakistan were exacerbated when trump when would hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military aid earlier this year. what should we expect? joining me now, pakistan's former ambassador to the united states, who joins us from rome, and laura miller was the united states' special acting representative to afghanistan and pakistan. laura, let me start with you. why did imran khan, a politician who, i don't know, five, seven years ago, as i recall, his party won one seat in parliament. why did he win? >> several factors contributed to his apparent election victory. the first one is that there is little doubt that the pakistani military tilted the playing field in his favor through pressure on the courts, through

pressure on the media, indeed harassment of pakistani media and through intimidation of election candidates. it's also the case that imran khan has genuine popularity in pakistan. his party did quite well all across the nation. and he has worked very hard over the last two decades to move from the fringe of pakistani politics to the center of power in pakistan. and a third factor is, it's not difficult to see why many in the pakistani electorate would want to vote for change. >> what does this mean for u.s./pakistani relations? he has been strident anti-american. the trump administration seemed to turn up the pressure on pakistan. though it seemed a momentary spasm rather than a sustained policy. what's going to happen? >> i think that imran khan will

try to reach out to the u.s., which he did in his first statement as well because of pakistan's massive problems. there's no money. pakistan needs every dollar and assistance that it can get. that said, i think it's also very clear that the reason why the pakistani military establishment supported khan was because they want status quo on foreign policy and international relations while wanting to change the status quo at home. on one hand, they do want a civilian government that is less corrupt but they want a civilian government that is morrow beadiebea -- more obedient to the military. i see no basis on which the united states and pakistan will be able to bridge the divide that has emerged between them. i do realize that the two countries will have to interact with each other but i don't

think that interaction is going to lead us to anything different from what we have had in the past. >> laurel, what do you think? the united states and pakistan hasv had the same dance now since 9/11. the united states has said we're going to push you hard, because you are at the source of a lot of the terrorism coming out. you support these jihadis. you have supported them for decades. at the same time, the united states needs pakistan to fight some of these forces and so it never quite cuts pakistan off. this has been the dance ever since colin powell went to musharaf right after 9/11. >> you're right. i'm not expecting to see any change in the near to medium term in u.s./pakistan relations, any breaking out of that dynamic you just described. the united states is pursuing a policy and a strategy in afghanistan that makes the united states dependent on some

level of cooperation with pakistan. there's no solution to the problems in afghanistan, no enduring stability in afghanistan without some degree of cooperation with pakistan. >> husain, what does this mean for pakistan? so many of the countries are moving, in some way, look at malaysia, moving away from authoritarianism. in some cases the military is even more dominant. where does this go? >> it has a very fixed notion of what pakistan's interest is. pakistan must see india as the eternal enemy. pakistan must have a dominant role in afghanistan and pakistan must be the center of the universe as far as that region is concerned. that is an untenable situation

when your literacy is low and quality of education does not create the human capital. i think if, as laurel says, that the dependence on pakistan if the united states decides to pack up and leave pakistan, it leaves pakistan with no anchor and also its own domestic growth and pakistani military is betting heavily on china, expecting them to bail pakistan out. pakistanis alone can bail pakistan out and pakistanis need to think beyond the military as the country's savior, but the military does not allow that to happen. >> thank you both. husain, as you've often written, pakistan has invested far more in its military over the last 70 years in its independence than it has on education and human development. i suppose that statistic says it all. up next, if the rest of the

show has gotten you down, the next segment will make you happy. i guarantee it. stay tuned.

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a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! this past january, a brand new class immediately became the most popular class in the history of the school. psych 157, but everybody calls it the happiness course, quickly enrolling more than 1,200 students according to the yale daily news, so many students that class had to be held in a concert hall. its popularity didn't end at yale. it soon became a viral sensation, featured in "the new york times", the washington post, and many more.

what is all the fuss? professor lori sanders joins me now. >> thanks so much for having me. >> why did you decide to teach this class? >> the class came out of a different role i had at yale. i became one of their heads of college. it's kind of like hogwarts. i live on campus with the students, eat with them in the dining hall and hang out with them in the coffee shop. i saw them in the trenches in terms of what they were going through. as a faculty member i was shocked at the mental health issues i was seeing, frankly. this is the kind of thing that folks report not just at yale but a national trend that's getting worse. about 30% of students report being so depressed it's difficult to function. over 50% of college students report being anxious a lot of the time and over 80% say that they feel overwhelmed by all they have to do. this was not my college experience. it's not the kind of spot where we're going to be educating

students well if they're this depressed and this anxious. >> data suggests that over the years, people have been asking for more and more mental health at colleges. why do you think this is happening? >> i don't know. i think there are a number of different things at work. my sense is that colleges are often prioritizing the kinds of things that science suggests aren't very good for well-being. overfocused on grades, future focused about what kind of job they're going to get later, even at a place at yale where most of them are going to get good jobs. those are not the kinds of things that promote well-being. it comes from being in the moment, social connection, counting your blessings and not worrying about the things in the future. >> when you talk about the social connections and social interaction and all the research suggests actual physical social interaction is very useful in giving people a sense of well-being. it seems to me that particularly for younger generation, they live in a world of social media interactions more than social

interactions. do you think that place a role? >> i think it's no coincidence that these kinds of mental health issues are coming up in this age where technology is pulling away the kind of normal social interaction we have. and that's true on social media, where i think people think they're getting social connection out of scrolling their instagram feed but haven't talked to a live person or made a real social connection. it's all kinds of other tech. we don't talk to our cab driver and explain where we're going, because we've punched it into uber. we don't talk to the checkout clerk. we scan it on our own. research suggests it's those simple social connections, talking to the barista at the coffee shop or the person on the street, that can bump up well-being much more than we forecast. >> experience of dating. you used to go to a bar, you meet someone, and now, of course, you look at an app. >> that's correct. >> and evaluate somebody on very superficial criteria and you get evaluated and that can't be good

for your sense of self worth. >> it's also activating another thing we know from the research that can be problematic, which is our social comparison. our mind is really good at picking out a reference point of who we should compare ourselves to. what should our salary be, how good should we look? we compare ourselves, often in a bad way. and i think social media allows us for so much more kinds of comparisons that make us feel bad about ourselves on these different dimensions, attractiveness, wealth levels. for our college students, the grades they're getting. they talk about getting good grades. nobody talks about bad grades. increasing the number of social comparisons that happen on a daily basis and that's not good for well-being. >> in the course, what do you try to give -- what's the message you try to give about what does lead to the good life, what does lead to happiness? >> the first part of the message is that the sad thing that the science tells us is that our minds lie to us all the time. we miswant things. that's a hard thing to take.

we think we need to change our life circumstances to become happier, we need a new job, bigger salary or need to move. the research suggests that our life circumstances play really little role. it's not what we forecast but what the science shows. what plays a much bigger role is our simple practices, like making a social connection or taking time for gratitude or taking time to be in the present moment, having some time that's unscheduled. >> what's interesting about what you're describing actually is it's simpler than what we think. we think what will make us happy is making a lot more money or moving to a different place or having a different apartment or partner, whatever. but what you're saying is really if every day you, i don't know, follow some routines where you make sure that you meet with some friends, have some social interaction, do a little exercise, whatever your day-to-day routine is, that can make you much happier. that's easier to do compared to doubling your income? >> exactly. i take the science of happiness

of giving us a lot of good news. it's not the hard things you need to change. it's the simple things. the problem, as we know, as psychologists, even changing the simple things can be really hard. that's why we're only a few months from january 1st and everyone has forgotten about their new year's resolutions. that's why the second half of the class focuses on a different part of psychology. that's the psychology of behavior change. as scientists we learned a lot about how habits work, how you can make habits stick better. how can you shape your situation to pursue the goals you want to have in your life? >> is there a simple rule, is there a simple answer to that? >> as you might guess, since behavior change is hard it's not super simple. one of the easy things to do is just do it. find a way to force yourself to do it over time. we know that habits build up by just simply doing them over and over again. another thing we know from science, is that social situation matters. you want to be around people who are supporting you, who give you some help in forming these habits. and that was one of the

wonderful things about the course. we 1,200 students on yale's campus, providing a tremendous amount of social support. people were asking other students, what did you write for your gratitude list today, what did you do for time athletics? it was powerful knowing that the whole community was doing this at the same time. >> laurie santos, pleasure to have you on. >> thank you so much. >> we'll be right back. at the alzheimer's association walk to end alzheimer's, we carry flowers that signify why we want to end the disease. and we walk so that one day, there will be a white flower for alzheimer's first survivor. join the fight at alz.org/walk. -we're in a small room. what?! -welcome. -[ gasps ] a bigger room?! -how many of you use car insurance?

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there's been a lot of talk about russian interference in the american election this is week, but another election brings me to my question. which of the following countries will achieve near gender parody

in its senate and lower house of congress? rwanda, south africa, france or mexico? stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer. my book of the week is "the china mission" by daniel kurtz-. engulfing the most admired man in america at the time, general george marshall. the portrait of marshall sent on a mission to china is, by itself, worth the price of the book. so impressive, he refused to write his memoirs, because he thought that would be improperly profiting from government service that he stands like an ancient roman statue in today's washington. the answer to my gps challenge this week is d, mexico. when the newly elected mexican

congress takes power in september, women are projected to make up almost 50% of both the senate and the lower house. overall, this means the country will have the fourth highest percentage of women in a lower or single house of parliament, according to the u.n. affiliated interparliamentary union.

thanks for being part of my program this week and i will see you next week. hey, i'm brian stelter. it's time for reliable sources. this is our look at the story behind the story, of how the media really works and how the news gets made. this hour, breaking news about president trump and "the new york times," a meeting with the publisher of the times now revealed. the latest on what the times says happened and what trump is saying as well. plus, trump's reality, orwellian view of the world. >> don't believe the crap you see from people, the fake news. what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's