Brzezinski on Obama A Manifesto For the Next President?

[Emit]

Zbigniew Brzezinski has written a new book that might be a foreign policy manifesto for Barack Obama. Its message is that America can recover from what Brzezinski calls the "catastrophic" mistakes of the Bush administration, but only if the next president makes a clean break from those policies and aligns the country with a world in transformation.

The former national security adviser says he hasn't yet picked the candidate who could deliver on his book's title of a "Second Chance" for America to reverse its decline as a superpower. But by stressing the need for a foreign policy makeover, his prescriptions seem tailor-made for a certain junior senator from Illinois. In his every word and gesture, the young, transracial Obama would say to an angry world: Take a new look. I represent a country that is different from the one you think you know....

~snip~

"Second Chance" is structured as an analysis of how the past three presidents missed the chance to create a true American superpower after the Cold War ended. He has some interesting, tart things to say about George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Bush Senior was "a superb crisis manager but not a strategic visionary," a president who succeeded brilliantly in coaxing the dissolution of the Soviet empire but who failed to take advantage of the opportunities his policies created. Clinton was "the perfect symbol of a benign but all-powerful America," but he was mesmerized by his vision of a deterministic "globalization.""

~snip~

The most intriguing part of Brzezinski's book is what I would describe as the Obama manifesto. (He doesn't call it that, but I don't think he would quarrel with that characterization, either.) Brzezinski argues that the world is undergoing a "global political awakening," which is apparent in radically different forms from Iraq to Indonesia, from Bolivia to Tibet. Though America has focused on its notion of what people want (democracy and the wealth created by free trade and open markets), Brzezinski points in a different direction: It's about dignity.

"The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening," he argues. His worry is that America -- enfeebled by "material self-indulgence, persistent social shortcomings, and public ignorance about the world" -- may not get it.


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/a_manifesto_for_the_next_presi.html

On edit, please note that this article was written just prior to Brzezinski's public endorsement of Obama.

[Maat]

1. Interesting (n/t).

[blm]

2. Obama's global terror experts are Richard Clarke, Gary Hart and John Kerry. Can't top

those three when it comes to the Why and Hows of global terror networks and the tracking of their political protection and financial sources.

[Emit]

3. He's also got Dennis Ross behind him, IIRC n/t

[blm]

4. Yes, he does.

.

[TexasObserver]

5. Zbig has sound Mideast policies

I like the direction Obama's advisors point.

[blm]

6. He had his failures in the past and learned from them. Not many do.

.

[TexasObserver]

7. he's not perfect, but his mideast policies seem more reasonable

than that of many

Carter did more good in that regard than most, and it was mainly because he pushed both sides to find the middle ground.

Zbig also warned us last year to watch the Bushies and make sure they didn't try to fake their way into a war with Iran. September 07 comes to mind.

[Emit]

8. There's a neoliberal bent to some of his advisors (i.e., Zbig), though, that

we should all remain aware of.

[TexasObserver]

9. Zbig is from the realpolitick school

they can be too literally real politick

[Emit]

10. Do you mean realpolitik in the sense of a realist foreign policy approach, or

in the negative sense of the word that relates to embracing more immoral or amoral, coercive approaches to foreign policy?

Edit typo