Zbigniew Brzezinski, Senate Foreign Relations Hearings on Iraq today

[Annces]

SFRC Testimony -- Zbigniew Brzezinski
February 1, 2007

Mr. Chairman:

Your hearings come at a critical juncture in the U.S. war of choice in Iraq, and I commend you and Senator Lugar for scheduling them. It is time for the White House to come to terms with two central realities:

1. The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity.
Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.

2. Only a political strategy that is historically relevant rather than reminiscent of colonial tutelage can provide the needed framework for a tolerable resolution of both the war in Iraq and the intensifying regional tensions. If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2007/BrzezinskiTestimony070201.pdf

[MissWaverly]

1. we must get out now

then once an international effort is put forth to rebuild Iraq, we must contribute to it,
there is no way to achieve stability through the current process and we cannot go to
war with 121 million islamic people.

[Gloria]

2. PBS News Hour showed a long clip....other than that, I guess

it hasn't gotten much attention, which is really f*cked up.

He said he figures the real news about the "secret plan" that Kissinger mentioned yesterday is that there is no secret plan.

He says his biggest fear is that Iraqis won't meet their "benchmarks" and that it will be blamed on Iran and the whole mess will escalate.

[SharonAnn]

6. Compare him, former Nat'l Security Advisor to Condaleeza, former Nat'l Security Advisor

What a difference!

[Kolesar]

7. Brzezinski made the Iran point very well

And that a regional war involving Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is quite possible.

[rndmprsn]

3. chilling...

and kicked

[Nikki Stone1]

4. K & R

Excellent. Thank you.

[omega minimo]

5. That is one clean, bright, articulate white man!!

K&R #5 :yourock: