Been There, Done That
Zbigniew Brzezinski is an old hand at failed policies towards Iran.
He's back with the same advice that started the current wave of global jihad.
Mr. Brzezinski obviously doesn't believe in the negotiating tactic known as the carrot and the stick. It's a tactic that superpowers have used throughout the ages. Then again, he wouldn't know what a superpower is because he served when Jimmy Carter decimated the military. Still, it isn't too much to ask that he learn from other administrations' successes. Lord knows that they didn't have any during the Carter years.
As for his comment that "there are clearly people in the Bush administration who do not wish for any negotiated solution", why shouldn't there be people skeptical, if not downright cynical of the value of a treaty agreement? It isn't as if a treaty of any sort is anything but worthless.
There's two things that Carter's disastrous foreign policy team had in common: (a) its love of treaties signed with lying dictators and (b) its absolute conviction of their decisions even after the world has rejected their value ages ago. They still believe that they're right and history is wrong. That isn't just hubris, it's the epitome of stupidity.
That's the only reason I need to reject Brzezinski's advice.
Cross-posted at California Conservative
Posted Monday, April 24, 2006 12:19 AM
No comments.
Even if the United States is not planning an imminent military strike on Iran, persistent hints by official spokesmen that "the military option is on the table" impede the kind of negotiations that could make that option unnecessary. Such threats are likely to unite Iranian nationalists and Shiite fundamentalists because most Iranians are proud of their nuclear program.This is typical liberal ideology. Negotiate from a position of weakness is straight from the Jimmy Carter failed handbook. Then again, Brzezinski is the failed bureaucrat that gave him that "Let's all get along" advice. It's obvious that Mr. Brzezinski didn't learn anything from Reagan's intimidating the Soviets into oblivion. You'd think he'd learn but he hasn't. It's like he wasn't listening when Bill Clinton, in a 1992 debate, said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
The U.S. is already allocating funds for the destabilization of the Iranian regime and reportedly sending Special Forces teams into Iran to stir up non-Iranian ethnic minorities in order to fragment the Iranian state (in the name of democratization!). And there are clearly people in the Bush administration who do not wish for any negotiated solution, abetted by outside drum-beaters for military action and egged on by full-page ads hyping the Iranian threat.Let's hope that they're "allocating funds for the destabilization of the Iranian regime." Let's hope that they're "sending Special Forces teams into Iran." God help us if we aren't. Mr. Brzezinski has consistently held to the theory that any show of military force was wrong. And for what? His advice hasn't been taken seriously by anyone other than those to the left of Ted Kennedy.
Mr. Brzezinski obviously doesn't believe in the negotiating tactic known as the carrot and the stick. It's a tactic that superpowers have used throughout the ages. Then again, he wouldn't know what a superpower is because he served when Jimmy Carter decimated the military. Still, it isn't too much to ask that he learn from other administrations' successes. Lord knows that they didn't have any during the Carter years.
As for his comment that "there are clearly people in the Bush administration who do not wish for any negotiated solution", why shouldn't there be people skeptical, if not downright cynical of the value of a treaty agreement? It isn't as if a treaty of any sort is anything but worthless.
There's two things that Carter's disastrous foreign policy team had in common: (a) its love of treaties signed with lying dictators and (b) its absolute conviction of their decisions even after the world has rejected their value ages ago. They still believe that they're right and history is wrong. That isn't just hubris, it's the epitome of stupidity.
That's the only reason I need to reject Brzezinski's advice.
Cross-posted at California Conservative
Posted Monday, April 24, 2006 12:19 AM
No comments.
