For more What in the World, watch GPS on Sundays at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET

By Global Public Square staff

Senator Rand Paul decided to drone on last week about drones. He employed a rare talking filibuster to stall a confirmation vote for John Brennan as the CIA's director. All told, he went on for 12 hours and 52 minutes, including when he took questions from his Republican colleagues.

Washington also saw some tough questioning for Eric Holder. The attorney general was forced to admit it would unconstitutional to kill an American citizen with drone strikes on U.S. soil unless there was a Pearl Harbor-type imminent threat.

Usually, filibusters can be viewed as a bizarre, quasi-constitutional mechanism that is basically anti-democratic. But it's important to have a serious debate about drones, not just on the legality of whether they can be used to kill an American citizen, but a broader debate about them.

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By Fareed Zakaria

Despite the speculation that this could be the year where “war or peace will break out” over Iran’s nuclear program, 2013 will more likely be another year of stalemate, argues Nader Mousavizadeh in the FT.

“This is mostly all theater. The reality is that for each of the principal parties, the status quo – Iran isolated diplomatically, crippled economically, boxed in militarily – is preferable to the available alternatives.

“An all-out war including weeks of strikes on suspected nuclear installations and widespread Iranian retaliation through conventional and unconventional means is, for most, anathema. It is also true, though unacknowledged by the west, that a genuine peace with Tehran is equally unattractive.”

If the two-state solution dies, “Israel will only be left with ugly options,” writes Ben Birnbaum in the New Republic, adding that the window is closing for a two-state solution.

“It could ride out the status quo as the world continues to turn against it. It could unilaterally create a Palestinian state by withdrawing to the line of the barrier, incurring most of the costs of a two-state solution with few of the benefits. It could annex the West Bank and give all Palestinians citizenship, making Israel a binational state. Or it could annex the entire West Bank without giving Palestinians citizenship, embracing apartheid.”

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"Fareed Zakaria GPS," Sundays at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET on CNN

Fareed debates the pros and cons of the Keystone pipeline project with Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. To see all of this or other interviews, download the show at iTunes.

Brune: But what’s happening in the electricity market right now is that solar and wind – the costs are dropping extremely fast. The cost of solar has dropped by 80 percent in the last five years. So what you’re seeing now is that solar – this is nuts – is actually starting to beat out gas in California on cost alone. Wind is starting to beat out coal in the Great Plains states on cost alone.

Because of large subsidies in both cases. The solar, the California situation...

…there are subsidies for every form of energy – for coal, for gas, for solar, for wind, for nukes. What we’re seeing, though, in 2012, for all of the new capacity that came online, more new capacity in solar and wind came online than coal and gas and nuclear power combined.

We joined together to push the Obama administration to enact the car standards announced last fall. Those car standards will save three million barrels of oil every day, which is almost four times the amount of oil that would come through this Keystone XL Pipeline.

So in the context of all of this, when we have the dirtiest, most carbon-intensive fuel source on the planet in Canada, we don’t need this oil.

By Donatella Rovera, Special to CNN

Editor’s note: Donatella Rovera is Amnesty International’s senior crisis response adviser from Aleppo. The views expressed are her own.

Aleppo’s Kweik river, keeps washing up the bodies of men and boys who have been shot in the head at close range. Some have their hands tied behind their backs, some have marks suggesting torture.

Virtually every day this past week I have been getting early morning phone calls informing me of more bodies in the river – two on Sunday, four on Monday, seven on Tuesday, three on Wednesday…

All eventually float to the same spot in the Bustan al-Qasr district of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, under the control of opposition forces but just a few hundred meters downstream from an area held by government troops.

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By Matthew P. Goodman and Michael J. Green, Special to CNN

Editor’s note: Matthew P. Goodman and Michael J. Green are based at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Both have worked on Asia policy in senior positions at the White House. The views expressed are their own.

Since the first merchant ship of the new American republic set sail from New York for Canton in 1784, trade has been at the heart of U.S. strategy in the Asia-Pacific. Deepening economic exchange with the world’s most dynamic region has not only promoted American prosperity; it has also been an essential underpinning of the U.S. military and diplomatic presence in the region.

This is why President Bush launched the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and why the Obama administration is redoubling its efforts to conclude a TPP agreement by the end of this year as a central part of its “pivot” to Asia. And it is why the administration should welcome Japan, Asia’s second-largest economy and America’s leading ally in the region, into TPP following Tokyo’s historic decision to seek entry into the talks.

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By Fareed Zakaria

Later this year, the Obama administration will have to make a decision on whether to green light the Keystone pipeline – the 2,000-mile pipeline that would bring oil from the tar sands of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. I’m sure you’ve heard all the dire warnings about it. But another way to look at it is to ask what would happen if the project does not go forward.

The U.S. Department of State released an extremely thorough report that tries to answer this question. It concludes, basically, that the oil derived from Canadian tar sands will be developed at about the same pace whether or not there is a pipeline. In other words, stopping Keystone might make us feel good, but it wouldn't really do anything about climate change.

Why? Well, given the need for oil in the U.S., Canadian producers would still get Alberta's oil to the refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. There are other pipeline possibilities, but the most likely method of transfer is by train. The report estimates that it would take daily runs of 15 trains with about 100 tanker cars each to carry the amount planned by TransCanada…And remember, moving oil by train produces much higher emissions of CO2 (from diesel locomotives) than flowing it through a pipeline.

For more on this, read the TIME column here.

Which African country held its election this week? How many cardinals are in the conclave that will choose the next pope? Where did U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel make his first official visit since taking up the post?

Find out in our weekly quiz.

"Fareed Zakaria GPS," Sundays at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET on CNN

On GPS this week, should the Keystone pipeline be allowed to go ahead? Fareed presents his take on the proposed oil pipeline, and then invites a dissenter onto debate the issue: Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune.

What does the future hold for Venezuela and the region with the passing of President Hugo Chávez? And what does it mean for U.S.-Venezuela relations? Fareed convenes a panel of thinkers including Moises Naim, a former minister of trade and industry in Venezuela, Rory Carroll, author of the new book Comandante, and Nikolas Kozloff, author of Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the United States.

“In the next few months and perhaps years, they would need to find international external scapegoats and scapegoats at home,” Naim says. “Someone will have to explain to the people that are now addressing President Chavez why the situation, their standard of living, has declined so dramatically. Someone will have to explain why, without Chavez, life is not as good as it used to be.”

And, China’s new president: How Xi Jinping will manage the world's most important relationship – that with the United States? Fareed speaks with China watcher Evan Osnos.

By François Godement, Special to CNN

Editor’s note: François Godement is a senior policy fellow and head of the China program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. The views expressed are his own.

This week’s National People's Congress will complete China’s once-in-a decade leadership change, with Xi Jinping becoming the country’s new head of state. China's partners, and above all Americans, want a China that is a predictable and reliable. After all, huge business interests require stable relations with China. And there is no doubt, China is becoming more powerful – it is not only present in most parts of the world, but has also become a determining factor in the international arena. We would all therefore love to see Mr Xi as a Chinese Gorbachev. But getting to know Xi’s real personality, and his likely style of governing, feels like Kremlinology. And what is emerging is worrying.

Xi is reputedly a charmer with an engaging and easygoing style. His wife is a famous singer, his daughter is quietly studying at Harvard. It is reported that he is even reluctant to embrace a luxurious lifestyle (although this does not appear to prevent some of his relatives from doing so). In public, Xi refrains from making controversial statements – an exception of course being the 2009 remark about the "full stomach" and the "constant finger pointing of Westerners" during a trip to Mexico.

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By Mark P. Jones, Special to CNN

Editor’s note: Mark P. Jones is the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies and the Chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University in Houston. The views expressed are his own.

Hugo Chávez was a great unifier.  Not of all Venezuelans, as even the most casual observer of Venezuela realizes, but rather of the two polar political camps into which Venezuela divided during Chávez’s 14 year reign.

Within the Bolivarian movement he created, Chávez was the unquestioned leader, bringing together the disparate factions that together made up the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).  Cliques, distinct ideological groups, varied regional-based interests, and a new wealthy business class (the Boliburguesía, whose members experienced a rise from rags to riches due to their ties to the government) were all united by their support – both principled and self-interested – for Chávez.

On the opposition side, the one common thread that tied together a heterogeneous opposition alliance (the Democratic Unity Roundtable, or MUD) was the goal of removing Hugo Chávez from power.  This vibrant and often passionate opposition to Chávez provided the glue that held together such diverse actors as socialists, conservatives, state-based parties, recently established parties, and parties linked to the country’s discredited pre-Chávez political system.

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By Fareed Zakaria

U.S. wages have fallen from 53 percent of GDP in 1970 to less than 44 percent last year, notes Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times. 

“The most succinct way to measure how corporate earnings have fared vs. workers' wages is to examine their share of the U.S. economy — that is, gross domestic product. From 1950 through the 1970s, corporate profits hovered in the range of 5 percent to 7 percent of GDP. They dipped as low as 3 percent in 1986, but since then have staged a long-term ascent that has brought them to 11 percent today, their highest level since World War II. (That's as far back as Federal Reserve figures go.)”

“China’s large pool of surplus labor has fueled its rapid industrial growth. Now this demographic dividend may be almost exhausted,” argue Yukon Huang and Clare Lynch in Bloomberg.

“College graduates are four times as likely to be unemployed as urban residents of the same age with only basic education, even as factories go begging for semi-skilled workers. Given the underdeveloped service sector and still-large roles of manufacturing and construction, China has created a serious mismatch between skills of the labor force and available jobs.”

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By Stephen Yates, Special to CNN

Editor’s note: Stephen Yates is former deputy national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney and currently CEO of DC International Advisory, a consulting firm. The views expressed are his own.

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously passed a new resolution sanctioning North Korea for its third nuclear test. North Korea's reaction to the announcement of a vote?  Threatening to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the United States.

This latest verbal volley is likely bluster, but there is a troubling quality to what we see in North Korea, and it is strategically significant.

On the surface it appears to be a cyclical melodrama – a spoiled child seeking attention or a cynical rogue extracting rewards for bad behavior. But over the last 20 years we have been through multiple leadership changes, multilateral and bilateral negotiations, humanitarian aid and U.N. sanctions, and the one constant is the steady progress North Korea has made on enrichment and other requirements for nuclear weapons. And that progress appears to have accelerated since Kim Jung Un succeeded his father.

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