ZAKARIA: When I first met Lee Kuan Yew in 1994, I was absolutely struck by him. Richard Nixon once compared him to legendary statesmen like Disraeli, Bismarck and Churchill. But, Nixon said, he occupies a small stage. That stage doesn't look so small anymore.
Lee Kuan Yew took a small spit of land in Southeast Asia, which became independent in 1965 after great struggle and anguish, with no resources and a polyglot population of Chinese, Malaysian and Indian workers, and turned it into one of the economic centers of the world.
To do this, Lee had to have smart economic policies, but also a shrewd foreign policy that, allied with America, kept China happy, kept Russia and Japan at bay.
This week I sat down with Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore. His son now serves as prime minister, but Lee Kuan Yew is called "minister mentor." And he is still indisputably the father of Singapore.
I was struck by the depth of his understanding of the world -- China, Russia and the United States -- all at age 85.
Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
ZAKARIA: You have achieved remarkable success for Singapore in your lifetime. You've seen it go from a tiny, poor, backward, Third World country to one of the richest countries in the world.
But lots of people feel that you have been -- you have exercised too tight a control, that you should have opened things up more, that it has been too domineering and coercive a state.
What do you say to that?
LEE KUAN YEW, FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF SINGAPORE: I say, ask my people. They are given the vote. It's secret.
Nobody has ever alleged any chicanery -- no bribery, no coercion, no nothing. We have never won less than 60, two-thirds of the vote.
ZAKARIA: But it's difficult for opposition parties to form and...
LEE: It is not the business of the government to enable the opposition party to overturn us. Right?
Do you expect the Republicans to help the Democrats to overturn them?
ZAKARIA: No, but leave aside even just the issue of political competition. I just mean you have laws, for example, that allow random testing of people for drugs. You have, you know, the famous ban against chewing gum, which exercised people's imagination.
Do you feel that you should have let up a little bit?
LEE: No, not at all. Because of that, we are now a safe, secure, fun city. The night scene has been transformed in the last 10, 15 years -- any number of nightclubs, the night life, al fresco dining by the riverside.
ZAKARIA: And people can even chew gum now.
LEE: You need to have a medical certificate to buy gum for those who want to give up smoking and have got to chew some nicotine.
What is it I am trying to do? I am trying to create, in a Third World situation, a First World oasis.
I am not following any prescription given me by any theoretician on democracy, or whatever. I work from first principles, what will get me there -- social peace and stability within the country, no fight between the races, between religions, whatever, fair shares for all, everybody is a homeowner.
I want investments. I've got nothing expect skilled manpower, infrastructure. I build up the infrastructure. I educate the people.
We have the best educated work force anywhere in Asia, and I would say, within another 10 years, anywhere in the world. They're all educated in English, which is our working language, and they keep their mother tongue, whether it's Chinese, Malay or Tamil, Urdu, or whatever.
Must I follow your prescription to succeed? Do I want to be like America? Yes, in its inventiveness and its creativeness.
But do I want to be with America, like America, with its inability to control the drug problem? No. Or the gun problem? No.
These are my choices. I go by what is good governance. What are the things I aim to do? A healthy society that gives everybody a chance to achieve his maximum.
ZAKARIA: What do you think of the American campaign, watching it from Singapore?
LEE: What can I say? It's fascinating.
Suddenly, Senator McCain produces this governor from Alaska, Palin, and is leading in the polls, and she's a hit. The first flush, she was a disaster.
ZAKARIA: What do you want from the next president?
LEE: Engagement with the world. Keep trade going. Don't backtrack, or you'll put yourself at a disadvantage and put the world at a disadvantage, and you make conflicts more likely.
Try and maintain a balance, so that peace and stability is assured without more conflicts.
ZAKARIA: One thing you've been critical of the United States of in the past has been its efforts to spread democracy around the world. You were critical of it when it was Bill Clinton's America, leave alone the freedom agenda of George Bush.
What do you object to in that push?
LEE: No, I don't -- I don't think it's doable. I'm a social Darwinist.
ZAKARIA: Survival of the fittest.
LEE: No. The survival requires you to change. If you don't change, then you are marginalized and you will become extinct.
ZAKARIA: But do you look at the way in which the United States has been trying to push democracy around the world...
LEE: Yes.
ZAKARIA: ... and you say...
LEE: Where have you succeeded? You went to Haiti in nation- building. And I was just listening to a BBC on Haiti recently. I mean, it's just undoable.
ZAKARIA: And we will be back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAKARIA: What about Iraq? What do you think?
LEE: I was in favor of getting rid of Saddam Hussein. I did not believe it was possible to reconstitute Iraq as a democracy. I still do not believe that is possible.
ZAKARIA: So, what do you think will happen?
LEE: I think some compromise must be reached between the Shias and Sunnis and the Kurds to share the oil wealth and to share the country. And that is possible.
But whether it is democracy, or whether it's a bargain between tribal chieftains, that's a different matter.
You're going to bring democracy to Afghanistan? They have been warring with each other for hundreds of years. They enjoy warring with each other. Thirty-plus years ago they killed a king who was nominally holding the country together, and it's been shattered ever since.
How do you restore the writ of Kabul? By some 30,000 NATO troops, ISAF, and a few more brigades of Marines or special forces?
The Russians had 140,000 boots on the ground with tanks, helicopters and the lot. And they left.
I think nation-building is not doable. I mean, are you going to do nation-building in Pakistan? If you can't get Pakistan right, you will never get Afghanistan right.
That Durand Line was arbitrarily drawn by the British between the Northwest Frontier Provinces and Afghanistan. They are the same tribes, brothers, cousins -- porous borders. They're in and out.
Now you've not only got Talibans, you've got Pakistanis joining the Talibans -- or that's the latest intelligence that I've been reading.
It can go on for decades. Do we want to be in Afghanistan for decades?
ZAKARIA: A lot of people look at the Russian attack on Georgia and say this is the return of a kind of dark era of geopolitics.
How do you view it?
LEE: The country is booming, has got enormous oil wealth. But the underlying problems are enormous. The system is no longer the Soviet system, where you press a button and things move across the country.
The corruption will take quite some time to put right -- maybe a very long time. I don't know.
The population is not on the increase, in spite of all kinds of incentives. And the incentives will only work in the cities.
So, if you look at the long-term trends, it's 140 million Russians, who will go down to 120, 110 in 2050. How do you become a threat with just nuclear weapons?
ZAKARIA: Has America handled this crisis well?
LEE: It shouldn't have led to this crisis.
You are dealing with a very adventurous leader in Georgia, and he acted in a very unwise fashion. It was just too silly for words.
What was the point? What was he trying to score?
And bad intelligence, because good intelligence -- what I read of the intelligence reports -- the Russian troops were there, ready. And if good intelligence, they would know what the reaction would be, and they would have blocked the tunnel, blown up the tunnel, and prevented the tanks from coming in.
This is just bungling. And...
ZAKARIA: By Washington also, because we should have managed this better?
LEE: I do not want to guess why the Americans were so keen to bring Georgia into NATO. But at Bucharest, when the NATO meeting was held, Americans should have known that it wasn't warmly received by the people who would be on the front line, if ever there's a conflict. And the Russians know that.
ZAKARIA: And we will be back.
Lee Kuan Yew took a small spit of land in Southeast Asia, which became independent in 1965 after great struggle and anguish, with no resources and a polyglot population of Chinese, Malaysian and Indian workers, and turned it into one of the economic centers of the world.
To do this, Lee had to have smart economic policies, but also a shrewd foreign policy that, allied with America, kept China happy, kept Russia and Japan at bay.
This week I sat down with Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore. His son now serves as prime minister, but Lee Kuan Yew is called "minister mentor." And he is still indisputably the father of Singapore.
I was struck by the depth of his understanding of the world -- China, Russia and the United States -- all at age 85.
Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
ZAKARIA: You have achieved remarkable success for Singapore in your lifetime. You've seen it go from a tiny, poor, backward, Third World country to one of the richest countries in the world.
But lots of people feel that you have been -- you have exercised too tight a control, that you should have opened things up more, that it has been too domineering and coercive a state.
What do you say to that?
LEE KUAN YEW, FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF SINGAPORE: I say, ask my people. They are given the vote. It's secret.
Nobody has ever alleged any chicanery -- no bribery, no coercion, no nothing. We have never won less than 60, two-thirds of the vote.
ZAKARIA: But it's difficult for opposition parties to form and...
LEE: It is not the business of the government to enable the opposition party to overturn us. Right?
Do you expect the Republicans to help the Democrats to overturn them?
ZAKARIA: No, but leave aside even just the issue of political competition. I just mean you have laws, for example, that allow random testing of people for drugs. You have, you know, the famous ban against chewing gum, which exercised people's imagination.
Do you feel that you should have let up a little bit?
LEE: No, not at all. Because of that, we are now a safe, secure, fun city. The night scene has been transformed in the last 10, 15 years -- any number of nightclubs, the night life, al fresco dining by the riverside.
ZAKARIA: And people can even chew gum now.
LEE: You need to have a medical certificate to buy gum for those who want to give up smoking and have got to chew some nicotine.
What is it I am trying to do? I am trying to create, in a Third World situation, a First World oasis.
I am not following any prescription given me by any theoretician on democracy, or whatever. I work from first principles, what will get me there -- social peace and stability within the country, no fight between the races, between religions, whatever, fair shares for all, everybody is a homeowner.
I want investments. I've got nothing expect skilled manpower, infrastructure. I build up the infrastructure. I educate the people.
We have the best educated work force anywhere in Asia, and I would say, within another 10 years, anywhere in the world. They're all educated in English, which is our working language, and they keep their mother tongue, whether it's Chinese, Malay or Tamil, Urdu, or whatever.
Must I follow your prescription to succeed? Do I want to be like America? Yes, in its inventiveness and its creativeness.
But do I want to be with America, like America, with its inability to control the drug problem? No. Or the gun problem? No.
These are my choices. I go by what is good governance. What are the things I aim to do? A healthy society that gives everybody a chance to achieve his maximum.
ZAKARIA: What do you think of the American campaign, watching it from Singapore?
LEE: What can I say? It's fascinating.
Suddenly, Senator McCain produces this governor from Alaska, Palin, and is leading in the polls, and she's a hit. The first flush, she was a disaster.
ZAKARIA: What do you want from the next president?
LEE: Engagement with the world. Keep trade going. Don't backtrack, or you'll put yourself at a disadvantage and put the world at a disadvantage, and you make conflicts more likely.
Try and maintain a balance, so that peace and stability is assured without more conflicts.
ZAKARIA: One thing you've been critical of the United States of in the past has been its efforts to spread democracy around the world. You were critical of it when it was Bill Clinton's America, leave alone the freedom agenda of George Bush.
What do you object to in that push?
LEE: No, I don't -- I don't think it's doable. I'm a social Darwinist.
ZAKARIA: Survival of the fittest.
LEE: No. The survival requires you to change. If you don't change, then you are marginalized and you will become extinct.
ZAKARIA: But do you look at the way in which the United States has been trying to push democracy around the world...
LEE: Yes.
ZAKARIA: ... and you say...
LEE: Where have you succeeded? You went to Haiti in nation- building. And I was just listening to a BBC on Haiti recently. I mean, it's just undoable.
ZAKARIA: And we will be back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAKARIA: What about Iraq? What do you think?
LEE: I was in favor of getting rid of Saddam Hussein. I did not believe it was possible to reconstitute Iraq as a democracy. I still do not believe that is possible.
ZAKARIA: So, what do you think will happen?
LEE: I think some compromise must be reached between the Shias and Sunnis and the Kurds to share the oil wealth and to share the country. And that is possible.
But whether it is democracy, or whether it's a bargain between tribal chieftains, that's a different matter.
You're going to bring democracy to Afghanistan? They have been warring with each other for hundreds of years. They enjoy warring with each other. Thirty-plus years ago they killed a king who was nominally holding the country together, and it's been shattered ever since.
How do you restore the writ of Kabul? By some 30,000 NATO troops, ISAF, and a few more brigades of Marines or special forces?
The Russians had 140,000 boots on the ground with tanks, helicopters and the lot. And they left.
I think nation-building is not doable. I mean, are you going to do nation-building in Pakistan? If you can't get Pakistan right, you will never get Afghanistan right.
That Durand Line was arbitrarily drawn by the British between the Northwest Frontier Provinces and Afghanistan. They are the same tribes, brothers, cousins -- porous borders. They're in and out.
Now you've not only got Talibans, you've got Pakistanis joining the Talibans -- or that's the latest intelligence that I've been reading.
It can go on for decades. Do we want to be in Afghanistan for decades?
ZAKARIA: A lot of people look at the Russian attack on Georgia and say this is the return of a kind of dark era of geopolitics.
How do you view it?
LEE: The country is booming, has got enormous oil wealth. But the underlying problems are enormous. The system is no longer the Soviet system, where you press a button and things move across the country.
The corruption will take quite some time to put right -- maybe a very long time. I don't know.
The population is not on the increase, in spite of all kinds of incentives. And the incentives will only work in the cities.
So, if you look at the long-term trends, it's 140 million Russians, who will go down to 120, 110 in 2050. How do you become a threat with just nuclear weapons?
ZAKARIA: Has America handled this crisis well?
LEE: It shouldn't have led to this crisis.
You are dealing with a very adventurous leader in Georgia, and he acted in a very unwise fashion. It was just too silly for words.
What was the point? What was he trying to score?
And bad intelligence, because good intelligence -- what I read of the intelligence reports -- the Russian troops were there, ready. And if good intelligence, they would know what the reaction would be, and they would have blocked the tunnel, blown up the tunnel, and prevented the tanks from coming in.
This is just bungling. And...
ZAKARIA: By Washington also, because we should have managed this better?
LEE: I do not want to guess why the Americans were so keen to bring Georgia into NATO. But at Bucharest, when the NATO meeting was held, Americans should have known that it wasn't warmly received by the people who would be on the front line, if ever there's a conflict. And the Russians know that.
ZAKARIA: And we will be back.
