Fareed Zakaria

Do you think he is a potential candidate for post of U.S Secretary of States in near future?

I can think of worse people for the job, but

  1. Is Hillary Clinton stepping down? and
  2. Does Zakaria want the job?

:smack:

Not replacing Hillary, but in a future government.

How is he viewed within U.S?

Oh come on, another Muslim in the US gov??! What’s wrong with you people?

He’d probably fit into the Obama administration well (which I’m assuming will continue to 2016). After that, it all depends on who is President - he’d certainly never get the post in a Republican administration.

Does he have any experience as a politician or diplomat? If not, how about he keeps being a damn fine journalist and editorialist. I nominate him to replace Jim Lehrer as anchor of the PBS News Hour, if Gwen Ifil is busy.

Isn’t he a supply-sider?

I don’t see it happening. We haven’t gotten to where we accept proclaimed atheists, let alone proclaimed Muslims. Throw in a lack of experience, and I do not see it happening any time soon.

Maybe not Secretary of State, since he has no actual diplomatic experience, but he could probably make a good state department policy wonk or undersecretary of somesuch. Then, after several years of experience, he could reasonably be considered for Secretary of State.

I’m not sure he has the right career background in that he doesn’t have longtime roots as a policy adviser to either political party, but I guess it’s not as implausible as I thought at first glance.

Hillary says she won’t continue after Obama’s first term.

Ambassador to someplace, maybe.

No.

No.

I like Fareed. I regularly read him in print and watch him when he makes appearances on shows (sadly I haven’t been able to catch his CNN show as often as I would like). I find him to be smart and pragmatic, and even when I don’t agree with his decisions, he at least has reason to believe in them, not blind faith or some ideology.

No. Not that he couldn’t do the job, necessarily, but most Americans have no idea who he is. Even the ones who do mostly know him as “that guy from CNN (or TIME)”.

I think he’d be great.

Probably not straight away but with a bit of experience as say undersecretary he could potentially be a very good secretary of state.

Zakaria brings a pretty unique mix of attributes. Along with Tom Friedman, he is probably the leading foreign affairs media pundit in the US today which is important since understanding and managing public opinion is an increasingly important part of foreign policy. However he also brings an academic and intellectual pedigree: he has a Phd in Political Science from Harvard and was the managing editor of Foreign Affairs. He is well respected by both parties as well as the foreign policy establishment. As a Muslim immigrant from India, he has a personal background relevant to two huge segments of the world which are important for US foreign policy. He would continue in the tradition of Kissinger and Brzezinski as immigrants who rose to important foreign policy positions.

He is still pretty young at 47 so it could happen. I wouldn’t be too surprised if Obama offers him a position if he is re-elected.

Didn’t I read somewhere that he was offered a position in the Obama Administration and declined?

I think he like’s what he’s doing, he’s good at it, and it gives him the sort of influence he likes without the constraints that political office would hold.

Certainly could do worse, Lord knows.

I think you are thining of Sanjay Gupta, who was offered the Surgeon General job and turned it down. As far as Zakaria goes, I’ve been thinking about it some more and I would say he has the knowledge of international affairs but not the experience with conducting diplomacy. You probably don’t want your Secretary of State to do that much learning on the job, so it might make sense to put him in more of an advisory role. That’s if for some reason he were being considered for a job like this.