[Fareed Zakaria:] Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria. We have a fascinating show for you today, a continuation of our conversation with Maziar Bahari, the NEWSWEEK reporter who spent four months in a prison in Tehran. This week, we hear of his release and his thoughts on the regime that jailed him. The main event is a conversation with Eric Schmidt, the CEO of what is surely the company most associated with the cutting edge of technology, Google. We talk about innovation, technology and more. Eric is perfectly qualified to discuss it all. A Princeton- trained engineer, he was chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems, then the CEO of Novell, before he took on the challenge of running Google. Innovation has actually been on my mind. I've always assumed that this was an area that America remained head and shoulders ahead of the world. That's where our future lies. That's how we will move up the value chain and create new jobs for the future. But over the last few months, I've been having some second thoughts. I've been reading these two new studies that use not polls of experts, but hard data. And they suggest that America's lead is slipping. In fact, one of them looks at the degree to which countries are adjusting and improving their research technology and regulatory policies to stay competitive. And it finds that the United States has made the least progress of the 36 nations in four regions studied. You can go to our Web site for the actual studies. Consider the three most important technologies in alternative energy that are likely to yield big payoffs solar, wind and battery power. America doesn't measure up to Asia in any of the three. Take solar energy. Japan and China each have three of the top 10 companies in that field. America has only two. Let's be clear. America still dominates the world of innovation by any measure. But the rest of the world is on the move, and America is not doing enough in research, education, investment to stay ahead. Like the star that shines brightest in the farthest reaches of the universe, but has burned out at the core, America's reputation worldwide may be stronger than the facts warrant. One sign of this, in my "Question of the Week" last week, I asked what you thought about American innovation. A majority of foreign viewers saw America as still dominating the future. A majority of Americans had their doubts about America's innovative powers. So, let's get started.
[Zakaria:] "Everyone has forgotten you." If you watched this program last week, you will recall those were the words that Maziar Bahari heard from his interrogator during the four months he spent in Iran's Evin Prison. Maziar is the NEWSWEEK journalist and independent filmmaker who was arrested after the election protests in Iran last June. The charges against him were nebulous at best. The chief one seemed to be that he had masterminded an international media conspiracy whose membership included his NEWSWEEK editor me. During his months in custody, Maziar was kept in solitary confinement and was tortured. At moments, he even considered suicide. Last week, he and I spoke in detail about his terrible ordeal. You can see that conversation on our Web page, cnn.comgps. This week, we'll go over a bit of what he said, and then, what happened next how his imprisonment ended, how we got out of the country, and his thoughts about Iran and its future. What was it like to be in solitary confinement?
[Maziar Bahari, Filmmaker And Journalist, Newsweek:] It might be the most difficult part of prison, to be in solitary confinement. You know in the Koran, Allah says that one of the punishments for sinners is to contract their grace, to make their grace smaller. When you are in solitary confinement, you just see the walls approaching each other, and they're becoming smaller. And it's as if you are in a grave. It was just and you start to hallucinated after a while, because of you know, you cannot do anything.
[Zakaria:] When you're in prison and you think that you might get executed, and this guard is constantly this interrogator is constantly staying that to you, it's such a rare experience to be that close to death. What is going on in your head?
[Bahari:] Actually, after a few weeks, when he threatened me with execution, I thought that, you know, so what? I can be executed, and that's the end of it. And sometimes I thought, you know, it's better than being in solitary confinement for I don't know how long. For people, they had to spend there, you know, three, four years in solitary confinement in Islamic Republic. And I contemplated committing suicide twice. I had my glasses the same glasses in jail. And a couple of times I just looked at these glasses and I thought, well, I can always break the lens, and I just can cut my wrist. And I was just thinking that how long it's going to take to bleed to death, how long it's going to take to bleed to death. And I started to think about it. And then I just thought that, no, I'm not going to do that. Why should I do their job for them? If they want to kill me, they can do it themselves. I'm not going to be their executioner for myself. And I had so much to lose. I have my family, of course. I have my wife, I have my child and I have my mother, my family and friends. And it just but they are masters of psychological torture. They know exactly what to do.
[Zakaria:] So, Maziar, the last phase of your imprisonment, 20 days before you're released, something begins to seem to change, you said.
[Bahari:] After yes, 20 days before my release I started to get treated better. There was no beating 20 days before my release. And then, 11 days before my release, they put me in a communal cell with four reformist leaders.
[Zakaria:] And at this point, do you have any inkling that you're going to be released? Or, no, it just seems like they're treating you better?
[Bahari:] I was I mean, when the 20 days before my release, my interrogator started to talk to me about the possibility of my release. But he was coming up with all these different excuses to stop it. He was saying that, "No, you didn't mention any names, so we cannot release you. were this close to freedom, but we cannot release you now." And then he would come back another day and say that, "We may release you tomorrow if you sign this or that document." And I just gave up. I would sign anything, you know, that they would give me. And...
[Zakaria:] Do you break at the end after a while, no matter how strong your resolve is? After a while you just are does one are you willing to do anything?
[Bahari:] I was willing to do anything. I was willing to talk about all their nonsense about Velvet Revolutions, Western imperialism, evil foreign media as long as I didn't have to mention any names or mention the names of individuals. That was my red line, that I didn't want to ruin anyone's life with my words.
[Zakaria:] The day you are released, what happens?
[Bahari:] I did not know that I was going to be released maybe half-an-hour before my release. They kept on delaying. We had given them my house date to be put against my bail. And then they told me that they were going to release me at 12 o'clock noon time. And my interrogator came at around 12:30 and said that, "No, it's not going to happen. We cannot release you. There are some problems." And then he came back at 1:30. He said, two o'clock. And he kept on going like that until 8:30 p.m. And finally, at 8:54, I was released, and I went home. And, of course, I didn't know what to do. It was just so unreal. But I knew what I mean, I knew exactly what to do. I knew that the next morning I had to get my ticket and get out of Iran and never go back until while the Islamic Republic is in power, which I don't know how long it's going to be. But that was what I knew.
[Zakaria:] But the first thing you did was, of course, you saw your mother.
[Bahari:] I saw my mother. I saw the rest of my family. And yes, that was a very emotional moment, of course, to be reunited with them.
[Zakaria:] And your mother is 84.
[Bahari:] My mother is 84. And the saddest moment that I had when I left Iran was when I said goodbye to my mother, because I used to be able to go to Iran much more often to see her, primarily. But I cannot do that anymore. So, it was very sad.
[Zakaria:] So, this is, in a sense, the end of a certain journey for you. You will not go back to Iran again for a long time.
[Bahari:] Otherwise I mean, there are 11 charges against me, 11 outlandish charges against me. And they're going to set a court date for me, I don't know, within the next two months or so. And they may sentence me to 15 years in prison, then to a life sentence, because of those charges. I talked to several lawyers, and they said that with these charges you can be sentenced to between 15 years to life imprisonment. And I really don't want to risk it and go back and see what's going to happen.
[Zakaria:] So, let's talk about some of the broader issues. Who are the people who took you? Because there's a story in and of itself here. Who were these people? What was their age? And what part of the government did they come from?
[Bahari:] I didn't know who arrested me until 107 days into my imprisonment. When I went to the communal cell, other people told me that we were arrested by the Revolutionary Guards. Of course, you know, Revolutionary Guards, they are an army that was created in the beginning of the revolution as an alternative to the Iranian army, because the Islamic government really could not trust the Iranian army. And then, the Revolutionary Guards, they evolved into this giant monster.
[Zakaria:] The military ruling elite of the country that now has its tentacles spread widely throughout the country.
[Bahari:] Exactly.
[Zakaria:] And many of these people are young?
[Bahari:] Many of them are between 40 to 50 years old. They are a new generation of the guards. Many of them are corrupt. But some of them are very clean, but, at the same time, they are ideological and extremists. And they are very powerful. They have arms, and they have money. And they have political influence.
[Zakaria:] So, in a way, this is the big story of what's happened to Iran in the last 10 years. The power has shifted from the mullahs to the Revolutionary Guard that has become more and more extreme and radical.
[Bahari:] Yes. Basically, Iran has become a military dictatorship and not a clerical regime anymore. It has become more like, let's say, the Chilean, the Pinochet dictatorship. Or it's going to become more similar to North Korea and some of the Middle Eastern dictatorships than what's supposed to be the Islamic Republic, or what the Islamic Republic was maybe five years ago.
[Zakaria:] And this was one of the reasons, also, where some of your friends in government were not able to help you, because it turns out that, while they were in government, they had no influence over this increasingly powerful Revolutionary Guard.
[Bahari:] Actually, many of my friends in the Iranian government tell me that one of the reasons that the Revolutionary Guards arrested me was to show the other parts of the Iranian government that we can do whatever we want, and you cannot do anything. We can imprison Maziar Bahari, who you respect as a journalist, and you will not be able to help him. And I think a lot of people learned that lesson. But the Revolutionary Guard's power is on the rise. They are becoming more powerful. And one of the reasons that they released me finally was because of the internal pressure. But I don't think that in two or three years' time, when they have consolidated their power, they would release people like me. They would just keep us in jail as much as as long as they want.
[Zakaria:] What does this mean for the opposition movement in Iran?
[Bahari:] Unfortunately, the opposition movement in Iran we cannot really talk about an opposition movement in Iran, because they call the Green Movement in Iran right now is just a collection of different groups coming together against the government. Some of them are monarchists, some of them are communists, some of them are terrorists. The majority, of course, they want the peaceful they wanted a peaceful reform in the government. But since the government crackdown, which has started in June, people are just questioning themselves what should be the next step. At the moment, most of the slogans are political and cultural. But soon, these slogans will be economic. Factory workers were not paid. They will ask for their salaries. So, they will join the opposition movement. Farmers who cannot sell their products, they will join the opposition movement. And then we will see a serious change in Iran. At the moment, I don't think that really someone can talk about the opposition movement, a cohesive opposition movement in Iran, but soon there will be a more united opposition movement. But the danger really is that both the opposition and the government is becoming more militarized. The terrorists, both within the regime and in the opposition, they are taking over. As we saw in Baluchistan, there was a suicide attack. Suicide attacks are not common in Iran. It was the first time. But I'm sure that we will see more of it. And that is exactly because of what the Revolutionary Guards are doing.
[Zakaria:] What should Obama and his administration do?
[Bahari:] I think Obama is on the right track right now. I think the world community, they have to stop a nuclear Iran by any means possible, but most importantly through smart sanctions. But the Obama administration, they also have to it also has to respect the Iranian people. I think, through smart sanctions, through keeping the lines of dialogue open with the Iranian government but at the same time talking about human rights abuses in Iran, helping the human rights organizations in Iran, talking about freedom of expression and helping the alternative media I think the Obama administration will have a more successful. I know it's easy to talk about these things, but Americans, they have made so many mistakes, especially during the eight years of Bush administration, that Obama will have a very difficult task in the future in terms of relationship with Iran.
[Zakaria:] Now, you've written this extraordinary cover story in NEWSWEEK. You're now thinking about other things. Or is the priority right now your newborn girl?
[Bahari:] The priority is the newborn girl, actually. I think in the near future, I will just concentrate on family, and we'll see what happens.
[Zakaria:] Maziar Bahari, a great pleasure to have you back...
[Bahari:] Thank you very much.
[Zakaria:] ... and to have you on my show.
[Bahari:] Thanks very much.
[Zakaria:] Thank you.
[Bahari:] Thank you.
[Zakaria:] And we will be back. When thinking about the issue that you can know everything, or we can all know everything, it scares people. Some people are unsettled by the idea that you know all this stuff about me. What do you say to them?