can save hundreds when they buy one unlimted line and get one free. now i can buy that electric scooter! i'm starting a private-equity fund that specializes in midcap. you do you. visit xfinitymobile.com 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 coming to you from new york. today on program, as a difficult year comes to a close, we look at the biggest challenges facing president biden. from the middle east, china, the war in ukraine, to the border. political dysfunction. >> this is a colossal waste of time. >> and the u.s. economy. i'll talk about aall with ezra klein and richard haass. >> and holding terror to account. a french company sued in u.s. courts by american citizens for funding isis in iraq. amal cooney and the lead plaintiff nadia murad join me exclusively to explain the stunning legal story and the tragedy behind it.

>> the terrorists are braise ebb in the financiers are brazen and they'll continue to do so as long as they're not being punished. but first, here is my take. 2023 has turned out to be a year that has seen a fundamental challenge to world order. the rules-based international system built by america and others over the decades, is now under threat in three regions. in europe, russia's war on ukraine shatters the long standing norm that borders should not be changed by force. in the middle east, the war between israel and hamas threatens a dangerous radicalization of the region with iranian backed militias fighting american-backed allies from lebanon to yemen to iraq to syria. and in asia, china's rise continues to unsettle the balance of power. each of these challenges has its

peculiarity but they have in common a mixture of deterrence and diplomacy. the joe biden has set agendas and rallying allies and talking to adversaries. but whether it could execute the policies it has adopted and that might depend on america's domestic politicals more than grand strategies. in europe, they have emphasized combatting russian aggression. this is easier said than done. russia has an economy that was nine times the size of ukraine's before the war. and a population today almost four times larger. that basic mismatch could only be addressed through continuous large scale western assistance to ukraine. coupled with pressure on kyiv to develop a more manageable military strategy and to reform its politics and economics so it could genuinely become a part of the west. in the middle east, the

challenge is more in the realm of diplomacy than deterrence. there is no doubt that it will win in the military sense the word, but to leave israel more secure, with meaningful new alliances with the gulf arab states, the u.s. must get israel to address an underlying unavoidable reality. about 5 million palestinians live in landso occupied with israel without rights and a state of their own. china is the largest challenges and the one in long run will shape the international order. determining whether the open international system collapses into a second cold war with arms races and nuclear weapons and space and a.i. the strategy the biden administration has adopted is nuances and emphasizing competition and deterrence wild also trying to build a working relationship with beijing. in the last few months, that

strategy seems to have yielded results. including a more conciliatory tone from the chinese. the shift has much to do with beijing's keconomic troubles an the realization that xi jinping has backfired producing animosity across asia. but tough messures have encouraged dialogue and diplomacy. despite well designed policy, the biden administration confronts the reality that american domestic politics could derail all progress. if american support for ukraine waivers, european resolve will also weaken and putin will be confirmed in his rediction that he could out last the west. large constituents still support ukraine but the u.s. is experiencing growing opposition from a newly isolationist right and the republican party is poised to nominate donald trump

as its presidential candidate, a man who has made no bones about his dislike of ukraine, and admiration for putin. in the middle east, biden faces benjamin netanyahu who has adept at pocking american support and resisting all advice. since the days of the oslo accords in the 1990, they have feigned support for a peace process while actually gutting it. the last time washington tried to pressure him, he made an end run around barack obama and mobilized support through congress. perhaps recognizing that the biden administration's seems to be trying to marshal arab states, chiefly saudi arabia to influence israel. with china, the administration's careful mix of deterrence and diplomacy could only work if domestic policy does not up end it. there is no perceived down side to bashing beijing.

the house select committee just recommended even more severe measures against china including a slew of tariffs that would according to a estimate, cost the u.s. economy up to $1.9 trillion over the next five years. and could lead to a broad rupture in the global economy. as i've recently written in an essay in foreign affairs, the most worrying challenge to the rules based international order does not come from china, russia or iran. it comes from the united states. if america retreats in each of these three areas, aggression and disorder will rise. 2024 might be a year in which the ugly polarized politics on capitol hill ends up shaping the future of the world in which we will live for decades to come. go to cnn.com/fareed to a link

to my washington post column this week. and let's get started. ♪ as the biden administration heads into an election year, and faces a complex set of challenges both at home and around the world. i have two excellent guests with me to talk about these compounding crisis and richard haass is from the council on foreign relations and a former top state department official and ezra klein is "the new york times" columnist and host of the terrific podcast, the ezra klein show. he is also the author of the book, why we're polarized. richard, let me start with you. ukraine, everyone feels like things look much more grim than people had thought. is that true and you have been arguing that the ukrainians need to fairly substantially change strategy? >> and grim is way too negative.

if two years ago we had this conversation, you said after two years, they would be where they are, we would have said where do we sign. pretty good. but no, there are some things to worry about. they're churning up an awful lot of ammunition and people are dying and u.s. support is obviously somewhat wavering. this is the reason i think they need to go to a less resource intense strategy and focus on holding what they own and what they have. and put aside for the time being probably talk of liberation. it is not i'm against it. i don't think this is realistic and i don't like it when people in wash say why should we throw good money after bad. ukraine ought to keep and protect what it has and some ties with nato, and long-term support agreements. it doesn't mean they give up the long-term goals, but for the moment they have to focus on what is realistic. >> i think you read about putin's press conference he does. he seemed very unrelentless.

he seems like there was no compromise. he could say, i could tell the west is waiver-ing. >> i don't think he's -- i think he's waiting on the november election. and you want to make it much more difficult for him to accomplish anything. we've seen russian forces are good at that. in general, in warfare, it is more pressure on offense and less on the defense. it is not a bad outcome if putin can succeed. he wanted to eliminate ukraine as a sovereign country with ties to the west. well, guess what, it is a sofin country with increasing ties to the west. let's keep that going. >> ezra, what would you make of the politics of supporting ukraine? we know all of the congressional stuff, you pull back how should we understand it? >> i think it is sometimes hard to decompose what is driving the

republican party at any given moment. there is the donald trump and the cult of personality and factions including more isolational factions and anti-biden and anti-internationalist and anti-nato sentiment. so which of these is dominant? if you have a republican nominee, if something unusual happened and say, haley wins iowa and then wins new hampshire and makes a credible run and she ends up the nominee, what does the republican look like? i don't know. but right now i think it is hard to tell. at any given moment, how much is really anti-biden and pro-trump and the republican party ending up in a fixed place that is different from the republican party that we saw 10 or 15 years ago. under different management, does it have a different view. it's hard to say. >> we will support ukraine as long as we get tough on border control. >> i think there is a lot to not like about leveraging ukraine's

freedom or even its existence for unrelated border control arguments. there are many places where the republican party could cut a deal with democrats. they could give something democrats want on anything from climb change to the economy. kevin mccarthy would have remained speaker if he made some concessions on how bills came to the floor. for the thing to hold in the balance here, to be whether ukraine survives, it doesn't strike me as a highly moral way of running that negotiation. >> what do you think of your former party? >> it is the reason it is any former party. i don't recognize it. i work for george herbert walker been and ronald reagan and george w. bush, they believes in alliances. this is different. i don't think the idea that we leverage support for a country under attack, the most fundamental rule of the world, you shouldn't be able to acquire territory by force and link it

to something unrelated and the only thing i would say is each party would do the same for the other if the party could come together. i don't understand why the democrats are supporting an open uncontrolled border. massive people -- numbers of people coming here and the republicans don't want to get to be the party that sold out ukraine. so actually by linking this, they may be doing one another a political favor even if it is for the wrong reasons? >> do you want to respond to democrat's open uncontrolled border policy. >> i don't think it is an open and uncontrolled border but i think democrats have been trying and believing for a long time they could create a big comprehensive immigration package bill deal. it is not seem to me that that this is in the offing any time soon. it might not be in the offing any time ever given how far apart the parties are on it now. i think it would make sense of democrats to make sure what they

want on immigration and how to achieve it. i don't think in terms of rhetoric, i don't believe that it is open borders, i don't think they're making enough of a clear argument of what they do want and such that any is breaking through. >> whatever biden does on immigration and he's tightened and he can't say it because he's scared that it will alienate his left wing. >> i think there is something to do that. >> we have to pause there. when we come back, the middle east and college campuses. when we come back.

and we are back on "gps" with ezra klein and richard haass. president emeritus on the council on foreign relations. richard, as i said in my opening, bibi netanyahu is very about at pocketing support and

resisting pressure. is he going to be able to do that because the administration is clearly in a very different place than israel right now on this war? >> he's going to try. what is so irnnteresting, in al of my time in government, there is pressure for the israeli prime minister to get along with the american president. the israeli public will measure a prime minister by how well he would manage that relationship. with bibi is going to do the opposite. he's going to go theize rael why -- israeli people and say i'm all that stands between you and extremists, be it hamas or a front for hamas. so he's going to take joe biden on. because their fundamentally different places about the management of gaza and what comes after. i could see this framing an election sometime in 2024. and what is good about this for bibi netanyahu, it allows him to frame the election about the future. it is about him and the

potential avoiding of a palestinian state, what have you, as opposed to the past, he is the person responsible for the intelligence of october 7th. so this is going to get really irning over the next six months. >> what about the politics here? what do you think -- how do you think you've heard people say that biden is going to lose a certain number of arab americans and lose young americans because of this unwavering support for israel. >> i think the substance is the issue here. ten months from now, it is hard to say, nine months from now, if people in america are going to be thinking about israel and thinking about gaza and the west bank. we'll see where the world is and where the conflict it. but it is an actual substantive issue, which is that biden tried to, one, reboot, the democratic party if nothing else, its relationship with israel. there what a period under the obama administration, where he tried to challenge on

settlements. and obama backed down. so biden sort of rebooted here. democrats, unlike what trump was pushing on israel, they care about some kind of more meaningful palestinian state and biden became the world's biggest ally of israel. and the implicit assumption was that by backing israel like that, biden would have influence he could use when he needed to use it. and what it becoming immediately clear is netanyahu did not see that deal the same way. and so then you get into the question, did biden mean it? influence only matters if you're willing to use it in both directions and if netanyahu is going to go against the biden administration on everything they care about here, including the idea that palestinians will be governing in gaza and what people call the day after, though we don't know what the day after will be. then is there any kind of red line at all? is america going to be funding perennial israeli control of gaza and activity and expansion

and eventually annexation in the west bank. so the problem is the politics in nine months. we'll see what that is. that politics will be dependent on whether the substance of what america ends up seeming to have signed on to, backed or financed, seems his own coalition to worked out or been just. >> what do you make of the argument that a younger generation including a younger generation of jews are much more critical of israel? the polling data does seem to suggest and i'm asking why? >> there are three generations here. there is a older generation and biden is part of it that sought israel as an impossibility and a miracle and saw it founded and when it tried to get wiped off the map and survive and in 1967 fight off a -- and in 1973. they see what israel could have been and how unlikely it is. but they remember it as weak and

vulnerable too. they have a generation, gen x, older millennials and myself for that matter who saw israel as strong. they had control of gaza. had control of the west bank. where in many ways an occupying force. but also saw and remember an israel trying to create something different, saw a peace process and an israel to find some way to a two-state solution and what people are missing in the campus protests, of which there is anti-semitism and extremism, but a lot of people are there because if you're younger, all you've seen is netanyahu's israel and that is an oppressive force in gaza and the west bank and is completely comfortable allowing those things to remain under control or the borders under the control and is in no way trying to, in the last 10, 15 years to find its way to something different and that generation is not proize raelg. you could see this slides down

the polling an that is in the long-term a significant security risk that they should take seriously because joe biden generation is not going to be if power in america for ever. >> what do you think about the college campus issue? >> agree. it is not just that israel is seen as goliath more than david. as in charge. but i think the american jewish establishment has dropped the ball. they have played the inside game. how many votes could you get on the hill for aid and so forth and look the other way at settlement activity. they've lost the larger debate. they have lost the emergenciation debate in this country and that is really short sighted. so while they were playing the inside game and they've lost the outs game and the proof is on campuses. that is the future. and what is interesting, is most israelis, like the netanyahus, don't care. and they're saying, you don't

get it and i think they're willing to go their own way or they think they could have their cake and eat it. and stand up to president biden and somehow they could continue to get sufficient american support. >> we'll have to leave it at that. thank you, this is really terrific. next on gps, amal clooney and her client nadia murad that aims to get monetary restitution, real cash into the pocket of isis victims like murad. hohow? we will explain.

in recent days, yazidi women and men and children have fled for their lives and i believe the united states of america cannot turn a blind eye. we could act to prevent a potential act of genocide.

>> that is president obama in 2014 talking about a tragedy that was then unfolding in northern iraq as isis attacked the yazidis, a religious minority. they sought safety from the terrorists from a top of a mountain but isis surrounded the mountain and left them with two choices as obama explained. descend the mountain and be slaughtered or stay and slowly die of thirst and hunger. at the same time, one of the world's largest concrete manufacturers, a french company called la farj, was paying isis so that it could continue to operate a settlement plant in the area that isis had seized. the two events collided last year by the u.s. department of justice which ended in la farj paying $800 million in fines. this week a landmark krifrl lawsuit was filed seeking

refugee for the victims of isis crimes. joining me now for an interview with human rights lawyer amal clooney, one of the lead lawyers and the lead plaintiff as yazidi woman named nadia murad. she's the author of the last girl, my story of captivity and my fight against the islamic state. >> i'm pleased to welcome you back to both of the show. this is such an important case. just give us as you're the lawyer, give us the facts of the case, what did la farj do. >> thank you for having us, the facts of this case is really shocking. so as you said, just when the genocide against the yazidis was beginning in iraq, that isis committed, this company that had already been funding isis for a year ramped up its support for

isis. and the invasion began on the 3rd of august, 2014. just days later la farj was negotiating a new deal with isis. not just to keep the factory going but to split the profits and give them a share of the cake as they put it. they were negotiating the terms of this deal on the 15th of august when isis attacked nadia's village and her brothers and mother was executed. they agreed, this cement company, one of the largest in the world, agreed to giving isis better terms in this profit sharing arrangement that they were entering into. ultimately agreeing to give isis 10% of its cement and 25% of the raw materials. they're watching the images unfold in front of them. the factory that la farj was operating through in syria was just 52 miles away from raqqah

which was the center of the slave trade that the yazidis became subjected to, the women and young girls. in department of justice brought against this company, the company admitted that it gave almost $6 million to isis and to a related group on the front. they admit that they agreed to provide cement, which reportedly was used by isis to build tunnels and in which western hostages and yazidis were held and startures. so this is an absolutely shocking set of circumstances. we commend the department of justice for criminally prosecuting this company and in what was the first ever prosecution under a statute that allows prosecutors to go after companies that provide materials support and conspire with terrorist groups. but the prosecution resulted in this huge fine, $3.25 billion and not one dollar has gone to

the victims. so the attorney general has the discretion to redirect some funds to the victims and we'd made a request for that. but we've also filed this lawsuit in the eastern jurisdiction of new york seeking on behalf of nadia as the lead plaintiff but over 400 other yazidi americans to get compensation from la farj for assisting in terrorist violence. >> nadia, what would you do with the money? let's assume that the suit is successful, what are the needs of the people would have been affected so terribly by isis? >> you know, having this company holding them accountable and having them compensate those who have suffered because of their support to isis, it is really important. so many of these people in the u.s., yazidis, they have family

members still, some of them have family members in captivity, and who are returned back to their homeland but they struggle to rebuild their lives. and i'm hoping that this will help them to -- their family members to rebuild their lives and also to be able to go back. because it is been almost 10 years and more than 200,000 yazidis are still displaced in their own country in iraq. they can't afford to go back and rebuild their houses. >> amal, this is quite a effort as you've pointed to the size of the suit. but also the complexity. you went to nebraska to find plaintiffs for this suit. tell us about that. >> that is right. so the plaintiffs from, all of the u.s. citizens and we sort of had worked out the legal theory of the case and we're tracking what is happening in the criminal proceedings and we were ready to go with the case. we just needed to find our clients. and plaintiffs. and we discovered there is a big

community of yazidis in nebraska. so, i think yazidis know that i've been working with this community on multiple accountability efforts for years now and we didn't tell them what it was about and we said you could gather in this hall at this time, this lawyer is coming to lincoln and i started to explain what was possible. this is the first meaningful chance for compensation for -- for these victims of isis. more and more people started coming and filling the hall and i extended the trip. and it's amazing to see sort of laid out in this court document 427 names and we expect that more people will come forward as well. >> next up, how did nadia manage to go from a victim of isis terror to a powerful figure holding the group supporters to account? more from nadia murad and amal clooney when we come back.

and we are back with human rights lawyer amal clooney, a lead lawyer on a new case against a french company for aiding and abetting isis. joining her is the lead plaintiff in the case, nadia murad. >> nadia, when you think about the -- all of the challenges you have had, you mean, you have managed to -- you were sold into the sex trade by isis. and now look at you. you're obviously won the nobel prize, but also a student at american university. i think about the first time i met you. you could barely speak a word of english and you're now writing papers in sociology and english. what do you think made it possible for you to have the kind of grit and determination to move out of this -- out of

the shadows of this tragedy and into the kind of work that you're doing now? >> i've decided to share my story at the very beginning when i survived because i saw the evil of isis. and it was important for the world to -- to remind the world about horrific crimes isis committed against yazidis and in order to prevent this from happening again, i had to share my story. and a -- and i felt responsible, because my nieces that were with me were killed by isis in captive its and they didn't make it. and when you survive, you feel this burden. and the guilt of going out there and sharing your story. and later, to learn that such corporations directly supported isis in their crimes, war crimes, it was just sickening

and unbearable. >> to me -- >> i think one of the sort of really shocking features of this whole sort of episode is that, you know, neither the armed groups nor their financiers expect to face account aability and you could see that by how brazen they are. they explained why under the warped interpretation of islam it was okay to rape and destroy yazidis and this company was brazen in its support and we've looking at the documents on isis letterhead and it has the name of the company on it. one of the documents is literally signed by the amir of the investment office of islamic state. they weren't even trying to cover their tracks initially. but, yeah, i mean, the terrorists are brazen and the financiers are brazen and they will continue to do so so long

as they're not being punished. >> what so so interesting about that is what both of are you trying to do is we forget, what happened and with isis was horrendous and the world rose up in horror, but once it was defeated on the battlefield, it passes and what you're trying to do is to remind people, what you're trying to do is hold people accountable. how hard is that, when you go and talk to people in governments, do you find it is a hard sell to remind them of the things that they had been so repulsed by just a few years ago? >> i think it is what amal and i will talk about, after isis was defeated, the pain and the trauma was -- was not done. but it was there. and soon after that, we saw a new cycle, just moving on and going to another story and covering another story. but we still have more than 2000

yazidi women and children missing in captivity. we have covered more than 83 mass graves and it is been almost ten years, i've had my mother and four brothers and two nieces and cousins and nephew that were all kill and some of them are now in a building in baghdad and they've been exhumed but have not been identified and there is no closure without a proper burial for those families. >> amal, what do you think are the implications for all of this? you know there is conversation now about sexual war crimes committed by hamas, there are -- there are things going on in the world now, when you look at that with all of the knowledge, what is your -- what are the lessons? >> i think the lesson is it costs money to commit crimes

like this and crimes at this scale. and we have to continue to pursue justice in every forum. so, we -- as lawyers, we're not governments, we can't prevent these atrocities, but at least, after they happen, we could work with survivors and build cases. anything that could move the needle towards accountability and away from impunity, means perpetrators have to face prosecution and victims have to get some assistance in rebuilding their lives. they deserve compensation at the very least and i think that cuts across the board for victims of sexual violence, whether it is sudan or victims of the international crimes taking place now in the middle east. >> thank you both, this is such important work you're doing. amal and nadia, pleasure to have you on. >> thank you, so much. next on "gps", david brooks will tell us how to preserve our humanity in darkrk times, afaft

the brbreak.

society has gotten so polarized that people seem to feel there are two sides to every issue. the right and wrong one. and the other side must be defeated. too often people are dehumanized others instead of trying to understand them and find common ground. a few years ago david brooks set up to learn how to really understand another human being. and he has useful lessons in this through book "how to know a person", the art of seeing others deeply and being deeply seen. david, welcome. as always, what you write is fascinating. you know, everyone said they want to do this. everyone said you need to understand the trump voter and you know, but it is actually quite hard, right. >> yeah. well, i wrote this book, i

thought i would try to be a better person, a better human being and we live in such bitter and polarized times and so many people feel invisible. and i thought the only way to aggressively defeat that was by making other -- by understanding other people and making them seen and heard and understood and that is part of it is just being open hearted. but you also need skills. and these are basic social skills like how to listen well and how to debate well and disagree well and host a dinner party and sit with someone suffering from depression and how to break up with someone without breaking their heart and these are basic social skills and i should know how to do this stuff. but i was a social idiot and so i spent the four years learning how do i do these skills and in the book i try to walk them from the first when they gaze at each other to arguing across political difference. >> what you're doing is

reminding us that all of the education tends to be about our intellectual intelligence and not our emotional intelligence and then when i think about what a.i. is going to do to us, it is going to be better at intellectual intelligence and we'll have to rely on emotional intelligence and we're less equipped for it. >> i think a.i. will reveal what it can't do. when i meet for the first time, we only understand what is going on in the first conversation 20% of the time. we just don't know. but one thing i could do, is when i'm meeting you, i could gave you a gaze that said you're a person to me, you're a priority to me and so much is in that first gaze. so i tell the story in the book, i'm having a breakfast with a lady named lerue dorsey in texas and she is a strict disciplinary. i'm a little scared of her. in walked a friend of ours, he

said you're the best and i love you and she suddenly is up bright and a eyes shining 9-year-old girl. the power to change somebody. and the key thing for jimmy, he's a pastor and when he sees a person made in the image of god and with a soul of infinite value and you could be christian or jewish or atheist or agnostic, with that level of respect and reference is a condition for seeing them well. you have to extend that basic level of respect to every person you meet. >> what is the biggest obstacles to our -- some of what you're saying seems obvious and easy. what is that prevents us? >> we're not as good at conversation as we think we are. when i begin to see the world from your point of view, how do i do that. >> it is skills. >> treat attention is not an on

and off switch, don't be a topper. if you tell me i had this terrible flightond the tarmac and i know what you're going through i was on the tarmac for eight hours and it sounds like i'm trying to relate, but let's talk about me and my superior circumstances. so the ego is very important here. >> it is a moral act. it is the ultimate generous act and only about 30% to 40% of the people i meet are question askers. they are not curious about you, they don't ask questions and so the quality of the questions determines the quality of your conversation. and so we should be asking bigger questions. and some of them, when i get to know someone, it is like where are you from. and as i get to know them better, it is something a little fun like tell me your favorite unimportant thing about it and i learn from academic that he loves to watch a lot of trashy reality tv show. but then as we get to know each

other, i want to ask you big questions. if this five years in your life was a chapter, what is the chapter about? what talent do you have that you're no longer using? what cross roads are you at and then you could drill down and have a great conversation, just exploring the answers and you will leave with a sense of human connection but you also learn about human nature and learn about the world. it is just a more fun way to go in the world but you have to have the questioning skills to get inside of someone else's brain. >> david brooks, it is a honor to have you on. >> it is great to be with you. >> and thanks to all of you for being g part of my program this week. i will see you next week.

i'm a little anxious, i'm a little excited. i'm gonna be emotional, she's gonna be emotional, but it's gonna be so worth it. i love that i can give back to one of our customers. i hope you enjoy these amazing gifts. oh my goodness. oh, you guys. i know you like wrestling, so we got you some vip tickets. you have made an impact. so have you. for you guys to be out here doing something like this, it restores a lot of faith in humanity.