Fareed Zakaria has been called the Muslim Cary Grant and mentioned as a candidate for secretary of state -- not the usual praise heaped on a journalist. One thing is certain: Americans increasingly rely on the articulate columnist and television commentator to interpret world events, whether they be the September 11 terrorist attacks, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan or the latest inflammatory ravings of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. At a time when political discourse is often limited to sensational sound bites, whining and bloviating, Zakaria's analysis and opinions are reasoned, complex, bipartisan and coherent. No wonder his fans range from Jon Stewart, who reportedly has a "man crush" on Zakaria, to Condoleezza Rice, who has said Zakaria is "intelligent about just about every area of the world." Esquire named him one of the 21 most important people of the 21st century.
Before September 11 Zakaria was a rising star in the rarefied world of foreign policy; The Nation called him the "junior Kissinger." Then came the terrorist attacks and Zakaria's response, a seminal Newsweek cover story called "The Politics of Rage: Why Do They Hate Us?," a bold critique of the "dysfunctions" of Arab society. In the piece Zakaria argued for an American and international effort to help Islam enter the modern world; he was rewarded with a fatwa. Since then Zakaria has become the go-to commentator on terrorism and the Middle East, as well as India, Pakistan, China, Russia -- in fact, just about every one of the world's hot spots.
In addition to his columns for Newsweek and The Washington Post Zakaria will soon host his own weekly hour-long show on CNN. He's also the author of books about terrorism, international politics, economics and globalization, including The Future of Freedom, a New York Times best-seller translated into 20 languages. His latest is The Post-American World, essential reading for anyone who hopes to understand the future of the United States. America has a choice, Zakaria contends: accept and adapt to the new paradigm -- the inexorable rise of the rest of the world -- or suffer economically and politically.
Zakaria, 44, who lives in New York City with his wife, Paula Throckmorton Zakaria, and their two children, was born in Mumbai, India, where his father was a scholar and politician and his mother a newspaper editor. He was educated in India before coming to the U.S. to attend college at Yale, where he became president of the Yale Political Union. After graduating he earned a Ph.D. at Harvard, followed by his appointment as the youngest managing editor in the history of Foreign Affairs magazine. Then Newsweek called. Along with his column and occasional features, he oversees the magazine's international editions. He's a frequent guest on talk shows, including The Daily Show, and an analyst for ABC News. He also hosted the Foreign Exchange show on PBS.
Playboy tapped Contributing Editor David Sheff, who last interviewed Russian dissident and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov for the magazine, to meet with Zakaria in Manhattan. "I knew Zakaria would be smart," Sheff reports, "but I was struck by his graciousness. Even as he talks about a new world, he has old-world manners and class. That's not to say he didn't keep me on my toes. Name any place and not only does Zakaria know its pressing contemporary issues but he puts them in their historical context. It's all the more remarkable because Zakaria's beat -- that is, everywhere -- with its elections, coups, terrorist attacks, assassinations and wars, is a perpetually moving target. Whether about Iraq, Iran, Russia, China or the U.S., he challenged me, as he regularly does his readers and viewers, to think deeply about my assumptions."
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