demonstrators. a tense situation in portland, oregon, this morning between members of the occupy movement and portland police. the protesters defied a midnight deadline to leave public parks. there are no reports of arrests, but police surrounded the protesters. thank you very much for watching "state of the union." i'm candy crowley in washington. tune in for my interview next week with former secretary of state condoleezza rice. next sundays, 9:00 a.m. eastern and pacific. up next for our viewers here in the u.s., "fareed zakaria gps." this is "gps," the "global public square." welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. we have a terrific show today, it goes all over the world. we start with the news about iran's nuclear program and a debate as to whether the time has come for military action. then, europe at the breaking point. we ask muhammad al-aryan, one of

the most important financial minds about whether the sueuro zone is about to come apart. why can't nurses and doctors come home from the middle east? it's a fascinating tale. finally, back home, the former governor of michigan, jennifer granholm, tells us what her experience of cutting taxes and reducing spending taught her. all this coming up. first, here's my take. last week the international atomic energy agency issued its most serious warning about iran's nuclear program. it argued that iran seems to have experimented with various technologies that suggested it was trying to build not just a nuclear program but a nuclear weapons program. this finding to be clear is at odds with the views of the former head of the iaea, muhammad al-baradei, as well as the report issued by the united states national intelligence council. it's difficult to be sure what to make of these intelligence

judgments because they are judgment that try to determine the intentions of the iranian regime. one thing is clear -- iran is developing an increasingly robust nuclear program. having read all the reports, i'm still not sure that anyone knows what iran's plan is. is it to develop a breakout capacity, meaning a nuclear program and a missile program, but not actually marry the two together? that would keep iran within the legal framework of the nonproliferation treaty which it signed and takes pains every year to make sure that it adheres to? or is it to develop the weapons themselves? frankly, the former would be the smarter course. it would get the benefits of increased influence. it would be seen as having a nuclear capacity, but not attract a total clampdown on trade and other kinds of sanctions that would come from having nuclear weapons. let's take the iaea report as valid. still makes the case for some kind of contact with iran.

as he left office as chairman of the joint chiefs, michael mullen said that one of his greatest worries was that we had no communication with iran. he worried about miscalculations, the misreading of intentions and, thus, war. look, at the height of the cold war we talked to the soviet union. an adversary we were contesting in dozens of countries around the world. we talked to mao, a man with a large nuclear arsenal who several times said he would welcome a nuclear war that would destroy half the world. we talked to moammar gadhafi. meanwhile, we do have a containment policy toward iran that appears to be having some effect. its neighbors are allied against it, and with the united states. the pressure has restricted the regime's room to maneuver. there appear to be internal tensions within the regime. and yet rather than keep the pressure on and see if we can find a way to get inspectors in, we now hear calls for war one more time. let's be clear -- we are talking

about a preventive war against a country that has not attacked us on the basis of intelligence reports. it is easy to start a war. it is very difficult to predict how it will go and where it might end. i think we need to ask some hard questions before we start launching the missiles. let's get started. and now time for that debate on iran. bret stephens is with the wrjs where he writes a column and karim sadjadpour from the carnegie endowment in washington. welcome. bret, you talked about in your column this week having a real debate about whether or not there should be military strikes against iran. but clearly you take one side of that debate. you think despite all the problems it would make sense to move militarily against iran, correct? >> i do because we've exhausted

all the other semi plausible alternatives, the obama administration came to office offering its extended hand to iran, offering diplomacy. that, of course, was tried and failed. we have ratcheted up sanctions. we're now on the fourth round of u.n. sanctions against iran. clearly from the iaea report, those sanctions are not having the desired effect on their nuclear programs, so we're really now faced with the option of either effectively doing more of the same which means doing nothing or biting the bullet so to speak and taking military action to stop them. hopefully american, not israeli military action. >> karim, what do you think? >> fareed, i don't think c the case for military action is at all compelling. it's a simple mathematical question. according to israel's best estimates, if they were to bomb iran's nuclear sites, they would set back iran's nuclear clock two to three years. my argument is that israeli or

even u.s. military strikes on iran would resuscitate a deeply unpopular ideologically bankrupt regime and perhaps prolong the shelf life of the iranian regime another decade or generation. so if the israelis came and said, listen, we could set back iran's nuclear clock 10, 15 years with a military strike, i think it would be a much better case. but two to three years, i don't think this is a real serious argument. >> as for the internal dynamics of iranian politics, i'm not persuaded that having a prestige program destroyed by -- by bombs would be -- would do very much domestically for this regime. i fear that they would consolidate their position both internationally and domestically if they were able to develop or require nuclear weapons in the teeth of so much international opposition. >> karim, what do you think the effect would be in iran? >> fareed, there is an historical precedent in the iranian context, as well.

that is, in the early days of the revolution, saddam hussein's iraq invaded iran and allowed the hardliners to consolidate power. what i see now three decades after the 1979 revolution is a population which is incredibly weary, incredibly unhappy with the state of the regime. the regime is ideologically bankrupt, as i mentioned. and one thing i constantly hear from iranian, young people, intellectuals, professional classes, is that they're opposed to any type of military action. and what i would like to see is far more 401(focus on what israr the united states might do and more focus internally on what's going on in terms of the repression and human rights abuses within iran. >> i think here karim and i agree entirely. but the interests here are not simply the interests of the iranian people. there's also the interests of the international community. it's notable that the country that has been most vidociferousn

calling on the united states to take military action against iran is not -- is not israel. it actually is saudi arabia. the rest of the -- the rest of the region deeply fears the implications of a nuclear iran for their security and for their future, and rightly so, and so should the united states. we're not just talking about fears for the region. an iran that is able to marry a nuclear warhead to a ballistic missile will at some point be able to strike not just tel aviv or dubai but london and possibly even washington, d.c. we have a deep security interest, something that we -- american leaders of both parties including president obama have said -- have said is an unacceptable outcome, a nuclear iran. i fear for the credibility of the united states spending a decade calling this outcome unacceptable and then more or less sliding right toward -- right toward it. >> every time america has gotten involved in military actions for fear of its credibility, it doesn't always work out as well.

you say at the end of your column, you know, this would probably give president obama a boost if he were to strike iran militarily. don't you think it would depend not on how he -- how the action begins but really how it ends? >> possibly, although i think americans recognize that -- have long memories about this regime, long memories going back to 1979, the hostage crisis. its responsibility in the death of 258 americans in beirut in 1983. the kobar towers. and i think americans also understand that the stakes aren't simply the immediate day-after consequences of what might happen in the straits of hermuse but in the long term what it means for national security to have them armed with nuclear weapons. >> car hikarim? >> there is no doubt but we have to differentiate between regimes that are homicidal and regimes which are suicidal.

the iranian regime brutally suppresses its own population. it has homicidal tendencies at home. but it's a regime which ultimately wants to stay in power. that's what's paramount for them. they're not suicidal. and, you know, i think, to coin a phrase, fareed, this u.s. foreign policy challenge that it faces with iran is really a post america foreign policy challenge in that we're not going to resolve this issue absent wide -- kind of a robust international coalition. and i think the obama administration when it comes to options for coercion basically has two options before it. the first is to pursue very strong sanctions or very strong action with a very weak coalition, or to pursue relatively milder action and have a more robust, much more robust international coalition. and i think the reality is that we -- iran is so dependent these

days on countries like china and russia and india and has been so isolated from countries like the united states and europe, that option two is really the best option we have. >> i think we shouldn't get carried away with the notion that this is a post heist american world or that america -- post-american world or that america doesn't have options or can't effect its will against what means a dozen, props more military institutions in a relatively poor country. we can do that, and i would add one more point about karim. he talks about homicidal versus suicidal regimes. and i have no doubt or i'm confident that an iran armed with a nuclear weapon would throb at tel aviv or somewhere else as a first order of business. but let's imagine a scenario where iran is facing a slow motion rebellion in the model or in the mold of what syria faces today. is this a regime that armed with nuclear weapons is going to go quietly into the night? that scenario keeps me awake at

night -- >> i don't understand, do you mean it would use the nuclear weapon on its own people? >> no, that it would use the nuclear weapon on perhaps israel or one of its neighbors if it felt that its life was -- that it was facing imminent extinction. >> isn't that problem far more acute in pakistan? yet i don't see you calling for military strikes on pakistan's -- in other words, if you assume that a regime would go crazy when faced with instability, why have you decided that iran which doesn't -- let's be clear -- doesn't actually have nuclear weapons is -- is the one that you should preemptively strike against. >> well, let's remember that pakistan remains for all of its many problems a country that has a civilian -- that has slavin government. but the example of -- >> this has absolutely nothing control over the nuclear program and you know it -- >> that's true, but that's all the more -- look. unfortunately, our options have been foreclosed precisely because pakistan does have a nuclear option which should make the argument or should advance the argument that i'm trying to

make, which is that regimes like this should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons in the first place. pakistan is that much scarier a country because it is so unstable and because it has this arsenal of 100 or 150 nuclear weapons. why should we want pakistan redux in a regime that is if anything more fanatical and more unstable than pakistan is today? >> karim, you get the last word. >> i should make clear, fareed, that we should vigorously try to prevent the possibility of a nuclear-armed iran. for your -- your friend jon stewart had a great line talking about dubai, he said that dubai is what happens when las vegas and saudi arabia have a baby. and if i had to use that jon stewart formulation about iran, i would say that the islamic republic of iran is kind of a hybrid between the taliban and the soviet union. kind of a diluted version of each. it's a byzantine, authoritarian regime which is deeply unpopular and ideologically bankrupt. and i think that u.s. foreign

policy toward the soviet union in the 1980s can be a useful template. that was a regime which had hundreds of nuclear weapons, we dialogue with them at a high level. we contain them, and we exhibited moral clarity. and we supported the forces of democracy and human rights, and actually that was one of the last great victories for the neo-conservatives. i'm surprised that bret wouldn't champion that approach. >> well, they also had gorbachev. >> on that note we will convene. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. one of the tragedies of the euro zone crisis is that we've waited so long that there is no costly solution. ♪ when your chain of supply ♪ goes from here to shanghai, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ chips from here, boards from there ♪ ♪ track it all through the air, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ clearing customs like that

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i tell you what i can spend. i do my best to make it work. i'm back on the road safely. and i saved you money on brakes. that's personal pricing. this week's europe crisis seemed to reach a breaking point, engulfing italy, the third largest member of the euro zone, and representing almost

20% of its gdp. what does this mean for europe and the world? there are a few people in the world with a better grasp of the ups and down of all these issues than my next guest, mohamed el-erian, the ceo of pimco, the bond-trading giant. you've been warning about this for a while. the sense that europe was adopting incremental measures that were not solving the problem. at this point, is it too big to solve in the sense that italy, because of its size, it's going to need something on the order of 500 billion euros of new debt in the next two years. can this even be solved? >> so the good news is it's not too late to solve. the bad news is with italy, the crisis has entered a very dangerous phase. and europe cannot wait anymore. so europe can no longer kick the can down the road or have a better image which they've been rolling a snowball down a hill because a snowball gets bigger. the problems have been getting

bigger, and they've been getting more disordersly. >> it fundamental problem -- disorderly. >> the fundamental problem is italy is going to shore up more debt. the interest rate that the market is charging italy is much higher than previously and threatens to be so large that the interest on the debt for italy will become enormously burdensome. so the key here is creating some kind of sense of confidence that allows the market -- that makes the market charge italy much, much less for its debt, correct? >> correct. >> so what do you do to make that happen? >> so first of all, to be clear, during the week we saw interest rates go above 7% for ten year italian bonds. at that level the liquidity problem becomes a solvency problem. like a homeowner who sees the interest rate on the mortgage go up. they could have afforded the mortgage at a lower rate, but they cannot afford it at a higher rate. so it's important to bring it down. what does it take to bring it down? first and foremost, it takes italy to convince the market like others that they are serious about structural reforms

that will allow them to grow. without growth, you can't lower your debt burden. the second issue that europe needs to do is europe needs to solve its banking problem. you know, the banks hold government debt. so their balance is contaminated and banks are the source of disruption. we need to do something there. the third issue is europe needs to draw a line saying these are solvency cases that require debt reduction and these are liquidity cases. so far europe hasn't been willing to do that up until recently with greece. and until it does that, the market is not going to know where is that line. and therefore, everything gets contaminated. and that leads to the fourth issue which is the hardest issue. germany needs to make a decision as to what it wants the euro zone to look like. germany is the most important country. people look to germany for decisions. germany needs to make one of two decisions if it wants to keep the zone together. either it completes fiscal union with closer political

integration, another way of thinking about that is the decision west germany vis-a-vis east germany 20 years ago. this is a political decision, we know it's a good bill. we're willing to pay for the politics of it. the other alternative is to opt for a smaller, less imperfect union of countries with initial condition. someone has to make the decision. >> one of the big issues here is, is it possible to get a smaller, more manageable union so that the euro is -- is adopted by countries that have similar economies and have something in common. the problem i keep hearing is, how do you kick somebody out? what is the process of exit? so what happens the day that the greeks exit, won't everyone in -- in panic about spain and ireland and portugal and take all the money out of there, because in a sense what they will feel is, wait, not all euros are created equal. and i'm going to put my money in the one country that's sure as hell not going to default and

that's germany. >> yes, the risk is there. and one of the tragedies of the euro zone crisis is that we've waited so long that there is no costless solution. every solution has enormous consequences, collateral damage and unintended results. so the question is not -- is are the costs, it's rather which alternative has the fewest costs. >> there's one very powerful actor that we don't hear much, that's the european central bank. couldn't the european central bank do a version of what the federal reserve did when we had our crisis and effectively say, we're guaranteeing everything? and what that will do is it will make the market stop trying to attack all these countries because they'll feel it's futile. would that work? >> the ecb like the fed, like the imf, is a monetary -- these are monetary institutions. they can build bridges, but they only build bridge. they need to be a bridge to somewhere. and so far the ecb has been a bridge to nowhere. not because of their fault but

because the other haven't stepped up. >> others meaning -- >> meaning the individual countries that need to step up their reform effort. meaning germany that needs to decide on how to strengthen the institution underpinning. and private creditors who also have to contribute. they also have to carry part of the burden. this is not a burden that the ecb can or should lift on its own. >> and the united states, tall did -- all it can do even though it has impact on our largest trading partner, our banks are connected, we can watch from the sidelines? >> the u.s. has done two things. first, it has privately urged europeans to get their act together. when they didn't work, it went public. it started to publicly lecture europe which didn't go down too well. europe said, wait a minute, we're here because of what happened to you in 2008. i think the reality is that every country, the u.s. and others, have to hope for the best but plan for the worst. which means have plan b ready to

know that if, god forbid, something really terrible were to happen to europe, how would we insulate other societies from this tsunami wave that will be coming over? >> you have italian debt on your books. what would you do? >> first, that is de minimus. we were concerned very early. on but people should be generally defensive but also selectively o selectively defensive. why, because the markets don't distinguish. i take you back. on wednesday last week when suddenly people say the italian yield go up over 7%, 499 stocks in the s&p 500, so 500 companies, 499 were down. now there's no way that 499 companies share the same fate. but the reason why they're down is because investors are human beings, said just sell. and therefore these violent moves in markets also create opportunity. so it's about being generally

defensive and selectively offensive. >> as warren buffett said, be greed when he everyone else is scared and be scared when everyone else is greedy. >> and have the stomach for it. >> mohamed el-erian, plush to have you on. >> thank you very much. >> we'll be right back. ♪ tdd# 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 there are atm fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 account service fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and the most dreaded fees of all, hidden fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 at charles schwab, you won't pay fees on top of fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 no monthly account service fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 no hidden fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and we rebate every atm fee. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 so talk to chuck tdd# 1-800-345-2550 because when it comes to talking, there is no fee. two of the most important are energy security and economic growth. north america actually has one of the largest oil reserves in the world. a large part of that is oil sands. this resource has the ability to create

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now for our "what in the

world" segment. i noticed a strange item in the news this week, an estimated 200 north koreans are stranded in libya right now. among them, doctor and nurses whose services are much needed back home. why are they there? why can't they go back? well, it turns out that they were sent to libya to earn desperately needed hard currency for north korea's tyrant, kim jong-il. but now despite gadhafi's death and the changing circumstances, he'd rather these essential workers stayed away. the same goes for hundreds of other doctors, nurses, technicians, and other workers in tunisia and egypt. why? the arab spring. the dear leader doesn't want these people who have seen street protests succeed and dictatorships fall to return and talk about it. in fact, editorials in south korean newspapers say that only 1% of north koreans have even heard of the arab spring. how you could have such an exact figure beats me. what we can say for sure is that

the north korean press has simply not reported on any of the popular uprisings of 2011. obviously for fear of sparking protests within north korea. in fact, pyongyang issued a statement in march simply saying libya's dismantling of its nuclear weapons program made it very vulnerable to western intervention. in other words, we the north koreans will keep our nukes as our insurance policy against regime change. so don't expect pyongyang to disarm any time soon. the regime they interprets the fall of gadhafi as a cautionary tale. don't disarm, don't try and talk to the west, don't open up. meanwhile, the suffering of the korean people continues. just last week, unicef reported that millions of children there are at risk of being severely malnourished. these children will be more vulnerable to disease and stunted growth. and there's little hope that the government has the ability to help even if it wanted to. there's been a major shortage of food for years now compounded by adverse weather conditions, a

suspension of food aid programs from the u.s. and south korea. even china, pyongyang's only ally, has cut food aid. so what happens next? no one predicted the arab spring, but can one predict a korean fall? not really. most of the tools of popular revolt these days are unavailable in north korea. only 400,000 people have mobile phones. that's 1.5% of a population of 24 million. getting a phone requires connections to the regime, internet penetration creates unavailable but it's estimated to be just as low. no twitter, facebook, youtube, noal jazeera to calm the masses. perhaps change could come when there's change at the top. despite rient scenes of kim jong-il looking healthy, he was in talks with the chinese. he is 70 years old. it's been reported he's had a stroke and has had cancer. and he's picked his successor in a rushed manner.

but the army, intelligence apparatus and the police appear to be solid lie behind him and his family. we'll probably never know what's really going on in north korea, and there is little appetite in china, the one country with influence in north korea, to force change in pyongyang. but it is worth remembering that in a time of mass global unrest and popular uprisings, north korea remains a highly secretive, brutal dictatorship enslaving its people. arguably the world's worst regime. and we'll be right back. one of the officials, the chinese officials, pulled me aside. we had a conversation, and he said, so when do you think the united states is going to get a national energy policy? i said, congress, the tea party, divisiveness, i don't know. he did this -- take your time. [ male announcer ] our nation's veterans are real-life heroes.

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time for a check of today's top stories. at the asia pacific economic cooperation summit in hawaii, president obama pushed for more exports to asia to create more jobs in this country. during a meeting with china's president jyesterday, obama up concerns over currency

manipulation and the u.s. intellectual property. italy's leaders are meeting to find a replacement for former prime minister silvio berlusconi. berlusconi resigned yesterday after italy's parliament approved austerity measures demanded by europe to shore up confidence in the country's faltering economy. supporters of syrian president bashar al assad protested outside of consulates of countries that prommiesed vote against the alab league after crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. a tense situation in portland, oregon, between members of the occupy movement and police. they defied a midnight deadline to leave public parks, there are no reports of arrests, but police surrounded the protesters. the death toll from wednesday's 5.6-magnitude earthquake in eastern turkey has risen to 40. turkey's prime minister toured the damaged area saturday. the quake follows another more powerful 7.2-magnitude quake that hit in late october,

killing more than 600 people. sleet, snow, and plunged temperatures also worsened condition for hundred of thousands of earthquake survivors living outdoors. and those are your top stories. now back to "fareed zakaria gps." the statistics are stark. in the last decade in the united states, 42,000 factories have closed. 1/3 of all manufacturing jobs have disappeared. my next guest, jennifer granholm, was governor of the state of michigan for eight of those ten years, from 2003 to 2011. so she saw those statistics happen in real-time. and now she has a plan to turn them around. she's the author of a new book, "a governor's story: the fight for jobs and america's future." she joins me now. thank you very much for coming. >> i am grateful to be on. >> so when you started out as governor, you had a plan, but it was somewhat different. your plan was pretty standard --

>> economy. i mean, the standard was -- actually, we were going to invest in education, and we were going to invest in early childhood education. and we were going to focus on land use. and the economists said in early 2003 that we were going through a cycle, that we would rebound at the end of 2003. that jobs would be created, and i thought, wow, what a great time to come into office. come in in the valley, reap the benefits of the rise in the economy. and what happened was totally different. >> and at the time, with a pretty conservative legislature, you cut taxes and cut spending. >> yeah. in fact, fareed, this is what -- from the laboratory of democracy, here's the empirical data from michigan. i cut taxes in my first 4 1/2 years 99 times. big tax cuts, small, targeted, you name it. by the time i left office, michigan was 48th in the country in terms of of the size of government relative to population. we had cut more employees than any state in the country. his cut more out of government

as a percentage than any state in the country. our corporate tax burden dropped, the largest amount of any state in the country. and still we had the highest unemployment rate. why? because the structure of our economy had changed. and the playing field had enlarged, and no longer was i just competing against other states. but obviously i was competing against the globe, and therein lies the difference. what happened in michigan is going to happen to the united states or is happening right now. >> so what had happened to michigan? explain, you know, why it had become uncompetitive. >> well, i mean, i would just say this -- can i tell you a quick story. at the end of my first year in office, i got a call from our michigan economic corporation who said we have a crisis, we're about to lose a factory of 8,000, they're known as the refrigerator capital of the world. they have the largest refrigerator factory, they employ 2,700 of the town of 8,000. i said, well, we'll go to the refrigerator factory,

eletctrolex, and make them an offer they can't refuse. we put every incentive on the table, zero taxes for 20 years. the uaw put out huge amounts of concessions. the work force training board said we'll train people, build a new factory. the management said we'll take the incentives, they were out of the room for 17 minutes. they walked in and said, wow, this is the most generous offer we've ever received, but there's nothing you can do to compensate for the fact we can pay $1.57 an hour in mexico. when they said there's nothing you can do, it said this is not just about greenville, this is not just about michigan. but there are thousands of communities across the country who are experiencing that very -- that kind of loss because of globalization. what we did is we did an analysis on our economy, we identified sectors that we knew we would compete in. we made sure we continued to improve both taxation and -- and of course reducing the cost of government. but so that we could do

public/private partnerships with the private sector to invest in key strategic industries to make them successful in america. >> you went to saerks and that really changed your views. >> it really did. in south korea -- and frankly, i just came back from china, too. and it -- it is -- obviously you know this. it's amazing what's going on. in meeting with some officials in china, i -- it was on an energy tour, we were looking at what china was doing in terms of energy, and, you know, they were showing us all of the new jobs they created and the buildings and factories. one of the chinese officials pulled me aside. we had a little conversation. he said, so when do you think the united states is going to get a national energy policy? and i said, you know, congress, the tea party, divisiveness, i don't know. and he said this -- he did this. he goes -- take your time. because, of course, they see that as their opportunity. and they're not the only ones. so my point is that i -- the urgency of the moment, every single day these businesses,

multinational corporations, making decisions about where to locate. and certainly they'll be locating where they can take advantage of developing markets. but if they're locating in developing markets and producing products that could be manufactured in the united states and are being imported back to the united states, we've lost the opportunity. and once they locate there, they're not going to move. it's too expensive to do. that that's why we have to have a partnership to keep them here. >> how difficult is this message to communicate politically in america? >> well, i -- this is what i fear. i fear that when people are describing the only solution to our economic challenges as being cutting taxes and government, without something else, without the investment half of that, then it's actually honestly aiding and abetting the flight of jobs from the u.s. because if you have an across-the-board tax cut without insisting that there be some investment in the united states with the benefit of that extra money, then of course corporations are going to be adhering to their shareholders who want them to increase value, and they're going to invest

where they can maximize return. that investment is not likely to happen in the united states. so if you just cut taxes without any strings attached to insist that something happened here for job creation. then you're only facilitating the flight of jobs from the u.s. >> final question. i can't not ask you this. how tough is it going to be for president obama to get re-elected? >> that's a great question really, fareed. another chapter in this book because in 2006 i ran for re-election. and i had -- michigan had the highest unemployment rate in the nation. people were very full of anxieties, similartor this situation. i was under water in my approval ratings. the right track and wrong track numbers were horrible. i was wondering whether i should even run again. and yet, once there became a choice and i ran against somebody who was a businessman, a billionaire who spent a lot of money, but i ended up winning by the largest number of votes ever cast in michigan because people had a choice. and ultimately, people will want to know who is fighting for me. who's on my side. and if they see the president has a plan, then i think he will pull it out.

>> governor, thank you very much. >> you bet. >> and we will be right back.

[ gunfire ] almost two months after rebel fighters stormed tripoli

and ousted moammar gadhafi from power, the man essentially running libya announced he would resign. mahmoud jabril, danger of the executive board of the transitional council is a u.s.-educated economist and former gadhafi official. he is credited with garnering international support for nato's march campaign which played a key role in defeating gadhafi. now the once-acting prime minister has turned over his reign to a successor. potentially leaving the nation in a perilous transitional state. welcome, mr. jabril. >> thank you very much, nice to be here. >> so the first thing i have to ask you is, why are you leaving at such a critical moment? >> well, i'm not leaving. i'm just trying to play a different role. and i think it's a more critical role, you know. trying to -- >> but you said when you -- sort of when you intimated your resignation, you said, look, in

order to run -- to do my job, i need an army, i need functioning police, i need to be able to take control of this country. and i don't have any of that. so i'm leaving. that's a pretty -- this a pretty bleak picture of how things are going in libya. >> well, that's -- that's the truth to some extent. you see, the reason for that, i think we have started the political battle a little bit prematurely, you know. what happened by deliberation of tripoli all of a sudden the political competition started. we, who were involved with the liberation of tripoli and the total libyan territory, were not prepared for that. therefore, i thought -- i'm not equipped, and i am not ready for such a political battle for the timebeing. and i thought probably a more important role was to devote my time and activity to develop those young people, women, and have them ready for election

day. >> so what you're describing is what many people fear in libya. that you have a kind of free for all. that once you got rid of gadhafi and once the regime fell, whatever even symbolic unity there was among the position is fracturing, and now you're seeing islamist on one side and other groups on the other, and tribal allegiances. how will this work itself out? >> well, i think this is an accurate diagnosis of the picture right now. hopefully looking at the future and the future of our generations of kids will unify the people and make them focus on more important issues. >> but your resignation is surely an act of frustration and a sense of disappointment with the people who are becoming powerful in libya now. a lot of them are tribal leaders, some islamic forces. do you worry about the rise of political islam in libya?

a very important leader said he wanted sharia law in libya. >> i don't worry about the rise of any political thought whether it's islamist, liberal. any type of political thought as long as that political thought prevails through elections, through the free will of the libyans. this is the name of the game. libyans should have a choice to choose their free government. their own leadership. if we reach this stage and libyans decide, then it doesn't matter who's in power. whether it's islamist forces, whether it's liberal, whether it's secular. any force, as long as it serves the interests of libyans, i am all the way for that. >> what do you think of what is going on in syria? watching as you did and helping organize the libyan revolt, do you think the revolt in syria can could? >> i think syria might move to the libyan phase now, you know. because unfortunately mr. bashar

al assad is following the libyan mode so far. he should realize that this is not a successful model at all, you know. just looking at the fate of gadhafi, he should realize at that power always rests with the people and that history is always written by the people. not by rumors, you know. >> do you think it was a mistake to kill gadhafi? would you have preferred to see him tried? >> oh, yes. at the personal level i would love to see him tried instead of killing him. too many things should have been discovered through him. this man has been a black box for too many things. our relationship with different countries, with different leaders, our money was abroad, how it was spent. too many secrets have just vanished when he was killed. >> when will the elections be held in libya? >> well, according to the constitutional dlafrgz, within eight -- declaration, within eight months from now. >> and you're optimistic?

>> oh, i am very much optimistic pause as long as there are young people and there are too many women in the street, you know, i think this is the new driving force of history. and i think they're going to prevail at the end. >> mr. jabril, thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. thank you. >> and we will be back. ♪

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