"Avoid Disaster With Iran"

BY RAY GRONBERG
The Herald-Sun
gronberg@heraldsun.com
Mar 30, 2007 : 12:02 am
HeraldSun

ET DURHAM -- In the remaining 20 months of the Bush administration, America's leaders have to avoid the sort of "spontaneous combustion" that could produce a disastrous escalation of the country's Middle East military conflicts, a former national security adviser said at Duke University on Wednesday.

..."If the war is enlarged in the next 20 months to include Iran -- if that happens -- for the next 20 years the United States is going to be bogged down in a war which spans Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and then you can forget about American global leadership," he said.

...The former Carter adviser made it clear he thought the country's three most recent presidents had handled things "badly."

But Brzezinski reserved his harshest criticism for the current president, George W. Bush, saying he'd helped cultivate "a self-paralyzing culture of fear" after the Sept. 11 attacks, squandered the government's credibility and fed anti-Americanism in many parts of the world by failing to recognize "it is absolutely futile for the United States to be waging what is in essence a colonial war in a post-colonial age."

In response to a question, Brzezinski compared Bush's post-Sept. 11 leadership unfavorably to President Dwight Eisenhower's calming influence at the height of the Cold War. "Both he and [President John F.] Kennedy infused confidence in America," Brzezinski said.

"I would have thought that's what presidents are for. Today the opposite is the case, and that I find very, very troubling because I think that weakens us and makes us more susceptible. In fact, I think it increases the temptation to commit terrorist acts in America. The case for a little more maturity and a little more responsibility is very strong."

...Brzezinski's prescriptions for the Middle East included an effort to tamp down the present confrontation between Britain and Iran over Iran's seizure last week of 15 British sailors.

He said it's "quite conceivable" both sides are in the wrong, and maintained that they should back off and let an "international study" assign blame.

As for Iraq, he argued that a "jointly set date of departure" for U.S. forces, agreed to by the American and Iraqi governments, would put pressure on Iraq's various factions to reach an accommodation. U.S. diplomats should also try to pull Iraq's neighbors into a discussion about that country's security, as they all would be harmed if the situation there explodes.

Brzezinski said there's no reason to think a bloodbath would necessarily follow a U.S. withdrawal.

"We expected that the U.S. leaving Vietnam would result in massive killings and genocide and so forth, and collapse of the dominoes in Southeast Asia," he said.

"It didn't happen. How certain are we of the horror scenarios that have been mentioned in what will take place in Iraq?"

...As for the broader issue of terrorism, Brzezinski counseled a case-by-case attack on al-Qaida and similar groups, in cooperation with many other countries, rather than trying to spread democracy abroad with bayonets and stoke the sort of fear at home that's led to intrusive security measures in every major building in New York and Washington.

"Since 9/11, which killed 3,000 Americans, 200,000 Americans have died violently -- in car accidents," Brzezinski said.

"We accept that as a necessary aspect of our way of life. But I'm sad to say that perhaps terrorism may be a necessary aspect of our way for life for some time to come. It shouldn't affect the totality of the national culture."