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Readers of this information service undoubtedly
appreciated the thoughtful commentary that Prince
Turki al Faisal, the new Saudi Arabian ambassador to the
United States, shared at the annual conference of the Middle East
Institute on November 8, 2005. Hopefully you took that opportunity
to explore the web site where that speech and the many panels from
the conference are archived. In case you haven't yet surfed
through www.mideasti.org, we
highly recommend it. There you will see a host of resources in
addition to the conference summaries, full transcripts and audio
files.
Among the illuminating presentations made at
the conference was the keynote address of Doctor Zbigniew
Brzezinski. He outlined the scope of an American crisis of
leadership and legitimacy in the world, especially in the Middle
East, and he offered a prescription to address these profound
challenges. We offer it here for your consideration along with our
suggestion to follow up your reading of Doctor Brzezinski's
remarks with a review of the balance of the Middle East
Institute's conference
deliberations.
Middle East Institute 59th Annual Conference
"Fractured Realities: A Middle East in Crisis"
November 7-9, 2005
National Press Club, Washington, DC
Introduction by Edward S. Walker, President,
Middle East Institute
Dr. Brzezinski was the National Security
Advisor for Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. He crossed swords with
the Nixon-Kissinger policy of over-reliance on d�tente and spoke
out in favor of the Helsinki process, which focused on human
rights and peaceful engagement in Eastern Europe. He pressed
support for the Afghan mujahedin based on his conviction that the
Soviet Union would meet its Vietnam in Afghanistan. He supported
East German dissidents, to the alarm of the State Department.
While he was criticized as seeking to revive the Cold War, his
ideas and philosophy had enormous impact on our history and
demonstrably helped lead to the fragmentation of the Soviet empire
and the subsequent collapse of communism. Ladies and gentlemen,
the Honorable Dr. Brzezinski.
Complete
introduction by Ambassador Walker
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Thank you very much, Ambassador Walker, Your
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
Fifteen years after winning the Cold War,
America�s leadership role in the world today, in my view, is in
serious jeopardy. If we look around the world, in different parts
of that world, regions are beginning to think increasingly of
their own collective self-interest while quietly detaching
themselves from their close connection � in some cases, organic
connection � with the United States. This is happening in the
Far East, where the beginnings of an Asian community of interests
is taking shape and doesn�t see itself as doing that on a
trans-Pacific basis but on an Asian basis. In a more subtle way in
Europe, the sense of European identity, over the years so closely
tied to a shared sense of mission with the United States, is less
and less being defined on a transatlantic basis and more in terms
of a European role in the world. In the last few days the
president of the United States was in Latin America. I don�t
think I need to elaborate on the kind of issues that arose in the
course of his visit.
The fact is that for anyone seriously concerned
with the large global picture and America�s place in it, we are
today facing a serious crisis of American credibility, of American
legitimacy and � it pains me particularly to say � of American
morality. I think that cumulatively has implications for our
long-term security.
All of that is very much at work particularly
in the Middle East. Our response in the Middle East after 9-11 in
many respects has been the catalyst for these, in my view, serious
trends.
After the terrorist attack � and I emphasize,
a criminal terrorist attack � on the United States, instead of
isolating our enemies our policies have tended to generate support
for them, particularly because of the enlargement of the sphere of
conflict by our own decisions. Instead of discrediting publicly
the chief propagator of terrorism, our emphasis on his
proclamation of the jihad has elevated his status in the eyes of
many people to that of a prophet.
Instead of mobilizing Muslim moderates on our
side, some of our officials in their public statements have come
close to using Islamophobic terminology, particularly in their
insistence always on identifying the terrorists as Islamic
terrorists. We don�t do that when we talk of IRA terrorism in
Northern Ireland. We don�t go around saying it�s Catholic
terrorism. We don�t do it when we talk of the Basques in
northern Spain. We don�t say this is Catholic terrorism.
Unfortunately the use of these over-arching adjectives tends to
create a subconscious identification of those people who see
themselves as Muslims or Islamists with those who are being
identified. That is the way the psychological mechanism works.
This is why we don�t call the IRA terrorists Catholics.
Occasionally we will even go further than that.
We have talked, at times at very high levels, of a crusade. We
have talked about waging a war against an Islamic caliphate. We
have even referred to Islamo-fascism.
This is not helpful. Worse than that, I think
it is posing the danger of the United States gradually sliding
into a lonely American war against the world of Islam. That is to
be avoided. It�s not in our interest. It�s not in the interest
of the world of Islam. It certainly is not inevitable. But it is
happening and one has to think about the implications of that
seriously.
In my view, it follows that a course correction
is needed in our policy, in our posture. Not a change in our
commitments, not a change in our traditional values, not a change
in our sense of obligation to those who may be threatened or
insecure, but a course correction in the way we conduct our
affairs.
Let me suggest to you four changes � course
corrections, if you will � which I think are desirable, starting
first with the easiest and then going on from there.
The first can be put quite simply: watch your
language. Avoid religious connotations. Don�t undertake rhetoric
that has the effect of fusing political grievances with religious
fanaticism. Both exist � political grievances exist and so does
religious fanaticism. But it is not in our interest to facilitate
the process of fusing the two.
Let us avoid semantic traps which limit our
freedom of action and which create uncertainty as to what our true
objectives are. No one in America opposes democracy anywhere,
including in the Middle East. Everyone in America favors
democracy, including in the Middle East. But it should not be a
codeword for destabilizing regimes for this or that reason �
unrelated, in fact, to the cause of democracy. It should not be a
codeword for avoiding the real problems. The vice president
speaking such a long time ago in Davos at the annual meeting made
it very clear that, in his view, peace in the Middle East between
the Israelis and the Arabs could only take place once there is
democracy in the region. When reasonably can we expect that to be
the case? If so, does it mean that peace is deferred until then?
Or does it mean that the quest of democracy is so accelerated that
in fact nilly-willy � but perhaps willy � it becomes in fact
the codeword for destabilization?
What we say counts. It doesn�t help for the
country that has been the principal symbol of freedom, legitimacy
and morality in our very troubled age now to be saying to the
world, as so often we have in the last several years, �if you�re
not with us, you�re against us.� That has been said so many
times, scores of times. I�ve run it through the computer just to
see how often a particular individual in the US government has
used that phrase. I often wonder whether he himself knows who the
original author of that phrase was. Those of you who are not
historians of Marxism-Leninism may not be aware of the fact that
that phrase was coined by Vladimir Lenin to justify the
elimination by the Bolsheviks of their Social Democrat rivals. �Since
they were not with us, they were against us, and therefore they
should be eliminated.�
So my first admonition simply in changing
course, in a course adjustment, is watch your language.
The second is a little more specific and
concrete. It is that the United States should become more specific
about the destination of the Roadmap for the Israeli-Palestinian
peace. There is no benefit in a process that perpetuates the
conflict, intensifies mutual suspicions, reinforces the
presumption that the other side is always going to cheat and is
determined to outmaneuver the other side while moving on the road
to this unknown destination.
So, we should be more specific. I strongly
believe that clarity by the United States on this subject would
help the peace process, would help to mobilize the majorities
among the Israelis and Palestinians in favor of peace by
clarifying what peace would really involve. Not in any great
detail, but at least by codifying the key responses to the most
fundamental issues. In fact, a lot of them already exist. Some of
them are part of the record. But they haven�t been jointly
codified in a clear and politically compelling fashion.
The president, in his letter of a year or so
ago to Prime Minister Sharon, in fact did address two key elements
in saying that a final peace solution will involve no
comprehensive right of return and no return automatically to the
1967 lines. Much as it may be difficult for the Palestinians to
swallow that, that in fact is a realistic statement. It is
difficult to imagine a viable solution which would not include
these two principles.
But the president also earlier this year,
speaking jointly in the Rose Garden in the presence of President
Abbas, stated that any changes in the 1967 lines � to which
there will be no automatic return � have to be by mutual
consent. Mutual consent, which tends to rule out unilateral
changes or their imposition. And that the Palestinian state needs
to be a viable state with contiguity, which implies something
significant on the Israeli settlements.
Hence, all that is missing from a truly open
and forthright codification that becomes a compelling definition
of the ultimate destination is the statement that territorial
compensation will have to be part of the arrangement for
territorial changes, since they are going to be by mutual consent
anyway, and that a formula for the sharing of Jerusalem has to be
part of the eventual outcome. Ultimately everybody knows that this
is the necessary collection or the codified definition of the
ultimate process. But the point is that, if it is on the table, it
becomes more difficult either to seek an imposed solution or
indeed to maintain a position of quietly abetting violence as a
way of derailing the Roadmap. So peace would benefit from it and
would certainly help to address one of the major issues in the
region that has contributed to a high level of political emotions,
to political grievances, to intense resentments.
The third step that is needed, which is even
perhaps more difficult, is for the United States to clarify the
options for Iran so that the Iranians themselves know � and even
more importantly their publics know � that Iran faces a basic
choice, either of persisting and damaging isolation � indeed,
eventually self-isolation � or the benefits of beneficial
inclusion in the international community.
Our policy toward Iran is a combination of
abstinence from serious engagement in dealing with the problem and
intensely hostile rhetoric, which has the effect of intensifying
political insecurity on the part of the ruling elite � but worse
than that, of creating the fusion between Islamic fundamentalism
and Iranian nationalism. We talk about regime change. We talk
about rogue state. We talk about criminal activities. All of that
intensifies the insecurity of the rulers while arousing the
patriotism of the masses, whereas in recent years there was an
obvious tendency for an evolutionary change, which separated
particularly the younger generation from the ruling mullahs.
Worse than that, we�re not seriously engaged
in dealing with the nuclear problem. I invite you to think of
another country, which in our elegant political rhetoric was also
included in the designation �axis of evil.� Iran of course was
one of them, but North Korea was the other. What have we been
doing toward North Korea? We have been participating in
multilateral discussions regarding the challenge that North Korea
poses in the nuclear area. We have been actively participating
with the South Koreans, the Japanese, the Russians, the Chinese,
and last but not least, the North Koreans themselves. We have been
sitting around the table negotiating with them. We categorically
refuse to do that with the Iranians. We want the French, the
British and the Germans to do that.
But that�s not all. After refusing to do so
for quite a long time, in addition to engaging in multilateral
negotiations with the North Koreans we are simultaneously
conducting bilateral negotiations with the North Koreans. Despite
their apparent membership in the axis of evil, we�re negotiating
with them directly. We wouldn�t dream of doing that with the
Iranians, on the grounds that it might, according to one of our
top officials, �legitimate the regime.� I do not know whether
we have now decided to legitimate the North Korean regime or not,
but somehow or other that does not prevent us from engaging in a
bilateral dialogue in order to reinforce the seriousness of the
multilateral dialogue.
Thirdly, with the North Koreans, both in the
multilateral setting and the bilateral setting, we are implicitly
committed to being direct participants in any quid pro quo that
emerges from the negotiating process � if it does. That is to
say, if there is an arrangement that is mutually beneficial, there
will be North Korean concessions of the kind that we desire
regarding their nuclear arsenal and there will be benefits flowing
to North Korea � not just from the Chinese or the South Koreans
or the Russians or the Japanese, but also from us. That is simply
out of the question in our position toward Iran.
Hence, I am sorry to say that our policy toward
Iran is part of the problem that we confront today in the Middle
East. It really is not a policy. It�s a posture. A posture by
itself does not often lead to desirable consequences. We need to
do more than that and we can. I would think that our approach
towards North Korea is the way we ought to be dealing with Iran,
and in the long run that in my view has the highest probability of
eventually creating a separation between the aspirations of the
younger generation of Iranians and the fundamentalism of the
present regime. Don�t forget, Iran is a country with an ancient
history, a serious culture, a sense of historical self-worth,
highly educated, with more women in universities than men and with
women playing important roles in the professions, and one of them
recently winning the Nobel Prize for Peace. It is not a country
that you can simply define away with some sort of label.
The fourth task that confronts us and which in
my judgment calls for a course correction is the most difficult at
all. I believe we need in our interest � in our urgent
self-interest � a serious scaling-down of the definition of
expected success in Iraq. We need then to act accordingly on it,
and preferably sooner rather than later.
We need to redefine what success in Iraq means.
That definition until now has been a viable, democratic state,
secular, embracing our values, sharing our unique love of freedom,
which others apparently find difficult to partake. The Iraqis are
expected to make that leap soon and we are going to see an Iraqi
state that�s a genuine democracy, a viable united state in which
the different key components cooperate in it on the basis of a
truly successful self-determination.
That strikes me as not a very realistic
objective. If convinced that the situation on the ground is
actually improving � which I�m not � it follows from it that
we better face that reality sooner rather than later. That we
better undertake an analysis of the relationship between costs and
benefits and the costs are certainly rising � in blood, in money
and in our international standing.
Do we really have a solid basis for concluding
that the situation will improve? Certainly the evidence until now
does not support that. There were incidentally far-sighted people
even before the war who warned about it. Let me read you a couple
of passages from what I thought was a very perceptive and
prescient analysis of the crisis in Iraq prepared by the U.S. Army
War College just before the war started.
�Long-term gratitude is unlikely and
suspicion of US motives will increase as the occupation continues.
A force initially viewed as liberators can rapidly be relegated to
the status of invaders should an unwelcome occupation continue for
prolonged time. Occupation problems may be especially acute if the
United States must implement the bulk of the occupation itself
rather than turn those duties over to a postwar international
force.�
The case goes on to argue, �After the first
year, the possibility of a serious uprising may increase should
severe disillusionment set in and Iraqis begin to draw parallels
between US actions and historical examples of western imperialism.�
In my view, if we leave sooner rather than
later, perhaps after the full adoption of the constitution and the
referendum and elections, we still have a high chance of having a
relatively viable Iraqi state, dominated by a Shi�ite-Kurd
coalition to which the Sunnis will have to adjust given the
enormous imbalance of power between the two sides. But the longer
we stay, the less likely that conflict within Iraq is likely to be
resolved because we�re not staying there in sufficient force to
crush it entirely, but we are staying there in sufficient force to
let it percolate and percolate and percolate. As a result, we see
the intensification of two conflicts: a sectarian conflict between
the Shi�ites and the Sunnis and a nationalist reaction against
the external, alien occupying force.
The art of statesmanship is at some moment to
cut the Gordian knot. To me, the war in Iraq has the closest
analogy to what France faced in the war in Algeria. General de
Gaulle had the stature to face that. I think it�s in our
interest that we do so.
But I want to end by saying that none of those
four corrective steps stands on its own feet. All four of them
have to be pursued at the same time. A single one will not resolve
our dilemmas. A single one will not diminish the threat. A single
one will not end the kind of volatile dynamic that is at work in
this very large and historically important and economically
important and geopolitically important region. That is the
challenge that we face. The recognition of the interconnection
between the need for course corrections in several domains is only
likely to happen if the decision-making process is open and not
closed, if it doesn�t operate in a narrow group-thinking in
which conviction becomes dogmatism, in which simple slogans
substitute for reason.
So this is the reason why I share these
concerns with you. This is why I offer these remedies, because I
think we are at a stage in which the challenge of statesmanship
but also of civic responsibility is to raise these issues with a
sense of genuine gravity and with a sense of urgency about the
need for a serious course correction.
Thank you.
Questions & Answers
Question:
Dr. Brzezinski, is the Bush administration capable of course
correction?
Dr. Brzezinski:
Let me be diplomatic. I think at some point in my life I should
be. I think America is.
Question:
Thank you. Given the recent comments by Iran�s president
regarding Israel, how can the Bush administration justify
engagement with Iran?
Dr. Brzezinski:
I believe it�s tomorrow or the day after tomorrow that the Bush
administration is going to be talking to Mr. Chalabi, who�s just
been in Tehran greeting the Iranian president. So if you�re
worried about it, I think you ought to address that question to
the White House.
Obviously no one endorses what the Iranian
president said. It was first of all a stupid remark, incredibly
stupid. On top of that, outrageous. There�s no doubt about it. I
don�t think anybody in the world has any doubt about it.
Question:
Have you had the opportunity to share your views with the White
House and have they listened?
Dr. Brzezinski:
Until about a year ago, yes. But progressively, as my criticisms
were being articulated, the process became � shall we put it,
more infrequent. To the point of zero.
Question:
This question actually comes from the US Army War College
representative. How does the US develop an exit strategy for Iraq,
and Afghanistan for that matter, that doesn�t look like
accepting loss and encouraging terrorism?
Dr. Brzezinski:
I think there�s a very important difference between Afghanistan
and Iraq. In Afghanistan we have a large Afghan constituency in
the government, in the key ministries, that fought on our side and
we supported them, so we were their allies too. This is why we
have a body of genuine commitment and loyalty and solidarity in
Afghanistan that makes the situation altogether different than in
Iraq.
In Iraq, basically there�s a very simple test
of who has the capacity potentially for being self-sustaining and
who does not. It�s a very simple test. Take a look at Iraqi
leaders and see which ones have Americans for bodyguards and which
have their own people for bodyguards, and you know the difference.
Question:
What would you suggest as the appropriate policy toward Syria
which did not compromise Lebanon�s independence, as was done in
the period of the Gulf War when Syria joined with us? Not this
Gulf War, the previous one.
Dr. Brzezinski:
I think we�re very wise in working together with the French on
this. The French have an established knowledge about that part of
the world, the Levant. They�ve dealt with the Lebanese, they�ve
dealt with the Syrians. I think if we work closely with the
French, we�ll be able to exercise a fair amount of pressure on
the Syrians � who are not unaware of their own self-interest and
therefore perhaps over time we can effect some significant changes
in their attitude, in their posture, in their conduct.
Amb. Walker:
I may have the last question here, relating to reform, our reform
efforts in the Arab world and the democracy program. You did focus
on changing our rhetoric but is that the only change needed in our
policy in order to encourage this kind of reform and democratic
movement?
Dr. Brzezinski:
If one reads the document prepared a couple years ago � I forget
its exact title but it was the Alexandria declaration by Arab
intellectuals � there�s no doubt that the Arab elites know
what the dynamic of history is, what is the meaning of change,
what is the meaning of modernity and democracy. I don�t think
they need lessons from us. We can support them, but only if we�re
clever and indirect about it. But nowhere has democracy been
imposed by force, by occupation armies, by preaching, by
denigrating those who are supposed to become democratic. I think
the region itself has traditions and capabilities which over time
can be nurtured. We can encourage that. One sees already a lot of
differentiation in Islamic countries. They�re not all at the
same level of development or progress or change. In the ones in
which there is more of modernity and democracy, the process has
been indigenous and not imposed from the outside.
Amb. Walker:
Thank you so much.
Source: Middle
East Institute
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