President Obama speaks about his Nobel award at the White House.

Fareed Zakaria | BIO
CNN Anchor

President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on Thursday by talking about war and the limits of nonviolence.

But he also praised the peacemakers of the past and said the world can and should still strive for peace.

"Let us reach for the world that ought to be," he told the 1,000-member audience at Oslo City Hall in Norway. "Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace."

The Nobel committee's choice of Obama as this year's laureate sparked debate, in part because he is a president waging two wars abroad. Obama said force is sometimes necessary, but said that is simply "a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

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Fareed Zakaria says that the United States may in fact be scaling down the goals of the military operation

Fareed Zakaria | BIO
CNN Anchor

When President Obama announced plans Tuesday to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, it appeared to be a major escalation of the war in that country. But, foreign affairs analyst Fareed Zakaria says that the United States may in fact be "scaling down" the goals of the military operation.

In an interview with CNN, Zakaria gave the new plan a good chance of succeeding in achieving its more limited objectives. But he said Obama's idea of setting a target date for starting to draw down U.S. troops was a strategic mistake - though he suggested the president may have needed to do so for political reasons.

Zakaria, author and host of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria: GPS," spoke to CNN Wednesday.

CNN: The president outlined an intensive but short-term boost of the military resources in Afghanistan. He didn't call it a surge but is this effectively the same as the Iraq surge?

Fareed Zakaria: Actually I think this is a different surge than the Iraq surge. And not enough people have noticed that - because the president did increase the number of troops and in fact, in many ways the number of troops that he has increased in percentage terms is much larger than the Iraq surge.

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President Obama welcomed Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a state last Tuesday at the White House.

Fareed Zakaria | BIO
CNN Anchor

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came away from talks at the White House reassured about U.S. policy in Asia, according to foreign affairs analyst Fareed Zakaria.

Singh and President Obama capped their talks with an elaborate state dinner in a tent at the White House Tuesday night, the first such occasion in Obama's presidency.

Zakaria, who attended the formal event, told CNN the dinner was a success: "My sense is there was a very warm feeling. The Indian prime minister was gushing and he's not a man who gushes."

U.S. and Indian officials spoke about the war in Afghanistan, just as Obama is expected to announce - on Tuesday - increased U.S. troop levels in the region.

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Fareed Zakaria | BIO
CNN Anchor, “Fareed Zakaria – GPS”

President Barack Obama with Chinese President Hu Jintao

Fareed Zakaria | BIO
CNN Anchor

President Obama landed in South Korea Wednesday for the last stop on his 10-day trip to Asia. The president made earlier visits to China, Singapore and Japan, in his first Asian journey as president.

In Japan, he made reference to his birth in Hawaii and his childhood spent partly in Indonesia, calling himself "America's first Pacific president." But as the trip winds down, analysts are seeking to answer the question of what Obama accomplished.

Fareed Zakaria, author and host of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria: GPS" spoke to CNN Tuesday about the president's trip and about a grim anniversary that's about to be marked in Asia. It's been one year since 10 Pakistani gunmen put India's commercial capital, Mumbai, through an ordeal of terror that killed 170 people. [Zakaria is the narrator of a documentary on the Mumbai attacks premiering on HBO on Friday.]

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HBO Documentary Films

On the evening of November 26, 2008, 10 young Pakistani men reached Mumbai, India in a small hijacked fishing boat, having slaughtered its captain and crew, and arrived unnoticed into busy port city. Over the next three days, armed with cell phones, machine guns and fruits and nuts for sustenance, the men unleashed coordinated attacks across Mumbai that left at least 170 people dead and more than 300 people wounded. Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and Newsweek's International editor, narrates the powerful documentary, ‘Terror in Mumbai,’ and recounts the events of those three days that sent shockwaves of fear around the world. We’ll show parts of this documentary tonight and we’ll talk to Fareed about the impact of the attacks almost one year later. Learn more about the film here

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Josh Fattal's relatives say they haven't had contact with him since he was detained in Iran.

Fareed Zakaria | BIO
CNN Anchor

Three American hikers detained by Iran are facing espionage charges, according to Iranian officials.

The three Americans have been held since July 31 on charges of illegally crossing the border from Iraqi Kurdistan into Iran. The families and friends of Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal say it was an innocent mistake and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has agreed. "We believe strongly that there is no evidence to support any charge whatsoever," Clinton said this week.

The move against the hikers comes at a delicate moment in relations between Iran and the United States. Fareed Zakaria, author and host of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria: GPS" spoke to CNN Tuesday about Iran and U.S. policy.

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Fareed Zakaria | BIO
CNN Anchor, “Fareed Zakaria – GPS”

President Hamid Karzai was declared the winner of another term in office as Afghanistan's leader Monday, after his opponent in a planned runoff election withdrew.

President Obama called Monday for a "new chapter" of improved governance in Afghanistan now that Karzai's re-election as president is complete. Afghanistan's Independent Electoral Commission announced Karzai's victory Monday after it canceled Saturday's presidential runoff because of the withdrawal of candidate Abdullah Abdullah.

Fareed Zakaria, author and host of "Fareed Zakaria: GPS" spoke to CNN Monday about Karzai's election.

CNN: What do you make of today's developments?

Fareed Zakaria: In a sense, it adds to the drama and tension surrounding the politics of Afghanistan, but it doesn't materially change very much because Abdullah was not going to win. Karzai was going to be the next president of Afghanistan. Imagine there had been a runoff and Karzai had won. We would have been roughly where we are today. The big problem is that it has not rebuilt Hamid Karzai's legitimacy. What he needs right now is not power or position, it's legitimacy.

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Anderson Cooper | BIO
AC360° Anchor

Iranians walk past campaign posters in Tehran ahead of Friday's ballot.

Fareed Zakaria | BIO
CNN Anchor, “Fareed Zakaria – GPS”

Voters turned out in heavy numbers Friday in Iran's election. Some lined up before polls opened, and others waited more than three hours under the hot sun to cast their ballots.

Reformist Mir Hossein Moussavi and two other candidates are challenging President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, blamed by many Iranians for the nation's four-year economic turmoil and known in the West for his vehement rhetoric regarding Iran's nuclear program and condemnation of Israel.

Officials had to extend the polling time from 10 hours to 12 hours to accommodate the massive lines of voters. Kamran Daneshjoo, head of the elections office, called the turnout unprecedented. Moussavi is the main challenger among the three candidates vying to replace Ahmadinejad.

The others are former parliament speaker and reformist Mehdi Karrubi and hardliner Mohsen Rezaie, the former head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Ahmadinejad still has staunch support in Iran's rural areas. CNN spoke with Fareed Zakaria about the significance of the elections.

CNN: Why is there so much coverage about the Iranian elections? Isn't it just window dressing?

Fareed Zakaria: Although Iran is certainly not a democracy, as we know, it is neither a monolithic dictatorship. The electoral system is highly restricted, and the regime only allows prospective candidates that are committed to the continuation of the revolutionary system.

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