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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Zbig

I can't even spell the guy's name, but he's been one of the most perceptive foreign policy theorists since the Soviet Union fell. (Yes, I know he did a thing or two before that, but his post Soviet understanding has been his zenith.)

Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, makes a similar argument about Iran. "I think of war with Iran as the ending of America's present role in the world," he told me this week. "Iraq may have been a preview of that, but it's still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we'll get dragged down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in the world."

Brzezinski urges President Bush to slow down and think carefully about his options -- rather than rushing to stop Iran's nuclear program, which by most estimates is five to 10 years away from building a bomb, even after yesterday's announcement. "Time is on our side," says Brzezinski. "The mullahs aren't the future of Iran, they're the past." As the United States carefully weighs its options, there is every likelihood that the strategic picture will improve.

The rest of the editorial is pretty average.

Also: If you're looking for something to read, Billmon has a long post on the use of a nuclear weapon on Iran and what it could mean for the empire and the world. I'm not sure I wholly agree, but it covers alot of mental ground and got me thinking a little differently.

posted by mikevotes at 10:02 PM

5 Comments:

  • I can't be certain, but I seem to recall Zbigniew Brzezinski was part of the planning of the ill fated Iran Hostage rescue mission. What a mess that was. Involved or not, he has been in a good position to develop an understanding if Iranian dynamics. Ain't it bloody amazing how the wheel turns.

    By Blogger Cartledge, at 10:15 PM  

  • Yeah, I'm sorry, I forget not everyone's US.

    He was President Carter's key foreign policy guy way back when, the man who came in to fill Kissinger's shoes.

    His understanding of the bipolar world was okay, but he tended to not understand all the nuances of the relationship.(my opinion.) A brilliant guy though, and when the world exploded to a multipolar environment, suddenly his weakness at white hat/black hat was replaced by a brilliant multidimensional chess player.

    He was outthought in two dimensions, but in today's world, he's just brilliant.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:20 PM  

  • The United States is directly responsible for the mullahs being the present of Iran. If we continue to talk tough on Iran and especially if we take action against that country then the mullahs will most certainly be the future of Iran.
    Nobody does backlash like the Iranians.

    Here's a bit of conspiracy for you: Perhaps the US planned to use the Iraq war to create a kind of pan-Arab civil war, to drive a wedge between Sunni and Shia Muslims to ensure that Sunni countries would not intervene to stop an invasion of Iran. Enter the US and British armies bombing mosques and market places and generally wreaking havoc in Iraq.
    We the public usually don't think past the next bend in the road but it's important to remember that there are strategists in our government plan much farther.

    By Blogger Justin, at 12:55 AM  

  • More conspiracy theory. Greg Szymanski says it has something to do with two nuclear war heads that Cheney lost in 91 and failed to report, in violation of international law.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:27 PM  

  • Libby! I had seen nothing about any of that. I don't know the source, but it's certainly worth a little homework, eh?

    And, Justin, I agree with both points. I occasionally entertain the idea that a region wide Sunni/Shia conflict is the long term goal, to be used much in the way the Iran Iraq war was, to deplete all parties.

    My only problem with the theory is that the potential complications and outcomes are so severely bad that I find it hard to believe anyone would seriously do it. Of course this admin did take the Iraq gamble with its huge potential downside.

    And as for US agent provaceteurs, there have been several coalition forces grabbed by the Iraqis who were driving around Iraq under cover with unarmed military explosives in the trunk. Those two British SAS guys last year in Basra for example. Nothing concrete, but a number of suspicious circumstances.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:02 PM  

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