money on its Belt and Road Initiative...Which is money better spent?". In July 2022, Zakaria wrote a Washington Post article titled "Forget pronouns. Democrats need to become the party of building things", in which he said "There is plenty of evidence that the Democratic Party has moved left, that it is out of sync with Americans on many of these cultural issues, and that it needs to correct course" and that "This is not a perception problem. It is a reality problem. Democrats need to once more become the party that gets stuff done, builds things and makes government work for people. That’s a lot more important to most Americans than using the right pronouns". Honors and awards Zakaria has been nominated five times for the National Magazine Award, and won it once, for his columns and commentary. His show has won a Peabody Award and been nominated for several Emmys. He was conferred India Abroad Person of the Year 2008 award on 20 March 2009, in New York. Filmmaker Mira Nair, who won the award for year 2007, honored her successor. He has received honorary degrees from Harvard University, Brown University, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Miami, Oberlin College, Bates College, and the University of Oklahoma among others. He was the 2000 Annual Orator of the Philomathean Society of the University of Pennsylvania. In January 2010, Zakaria was given the Padma Bhushan award by the Indian government for his contribution to the field of journalism. He has served on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, Columbia University's International House, City College of New York's Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership, among others. He was a trustee of Yale Corporation, the governing body of Yale University and the Trilateral Commission. In 2020, Zakaria was awarded the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) Founders Award for Excellence in Journalism. Controversies Role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq In his 2006 book State of Denial, journalist Bob Woodward of The Washington Post described a 29 November 2001 meeting of Middle East analysts, including Zakaria, that was convened at the request of the then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. According to a story in The New York Times on Woodward's book, the Wolfowitz meeting ultimately produced a report for President George W. Bush that supported the subsequent invasion of Iraq. Zakaria, however, later told The New