Manichean delusions: Brzezinski

[teryang]

Laststeamtrain posted this statement by Zbigniew Brzezinski, prepared for the Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing Feb 1. It has gone largely unnoticed as have the hearings by the media. His statement is worth a second look because he is predicting a wider war based upon current regime propaganda:

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001916.php


...If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMD's in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the "decisive ideological struggle" of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. In that context, Islamist extremism and al Qaeda are presented as the equivalents of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia, and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl Harbor attack which precipitated America's involvement in World War II.

This simplistic and demagogic narrative overlooks the fact that Nazism was based on the military power of the industrially most advanced European state; and that Stalinism was able to mobilize not only the resources of the victorious and militarily powerful Soviet Union but also had worldwide appeal through its Marxist doctrine. In contrast, most Muslims are not embracing Islamic fundamentalism; al Qaeda is an isolated fundamentalist Islamist aberration; most Iraqis are engaged in strife because the American occupation of Iraq destroyed the Iraqi state; while Iran -- though gaining in regional influence -- is itself politically divided, economically and militarily weak. To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Deplorably, the Administration's foreign policy in the Middle East region has lately relied almost entirely on such sloganeering. Vague and inflammatory talk about "a new strategic context" which is based on "clarity" and which prompts "the birth pangs of a new Middle East" is breeding intensifying anti-Americanism and is increasing the danger of a long-term collision between the United States and the Islamic world. Those in charge of U.S. diplomacy have also adopted a posture of moralistic self-ostracism toward Iran strongly reminiscent of John Foster Dulles's attitude of the early 1950's toward Chinese Communist leaders (resulting among other things in the well-known episode of the refused handshake). It took some two decades and a half before another Republican president was finally able to undo that legacy...

Zbig notes that, "...that practically no country in the world shares the Manichean delusions that the Administration so passionately articulates."

Zbig's recommendations include a firm timetable for withdrawal from Iraq and a rational that supports it, among other things. He finally recommends that Congress assert itself.

Whatever else this unprincipled gentleman may be, he is a foreign policy expert. He is predicting a much wider war based upon the direction of this adminstration's demagoguery and unfounded mythology.

Is Congress listening? Does the media report it? Why is the administration's "sloganeering" treated as a viable basis foreign policy discussion in Congress and the media?

[patrice]

1. Powerful stuff, especially

coming from "this unprincipled gentleman" - don't you think? Someone who isn't on one side or the other is even more convincing to me when s/he takes a position.

[chknltl]

2. k and r n/t

[yurbud]

3. When will respectable people stop pretending Bush thinks he's spreading Democracy?

He is a snake oil salesman, with an emphasis on the OIL. The democracy, struggle of civilization, crusade, whatever it is this week, is just the pitch to get the rubes into the tent, so he can use them to gaurd the pipelines while the oil companies suck out the oil.

It is embarrassing to me to always see more honest and cogent analysis in the comments than in the Sesame Street level fairy tale terms so-called experts keep using. He is blowing smoke up our collective asses.