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Brzezinski Rips U.S. Policy on Iran, Hamas
Published on Sunday, May 14, 2006 by the Toronto Star / Canada
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Brzezinski Rips U.S. Policy on Iran, Hamas
Patience, diplomacy needed in region, Mideast
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by Haroon Siddiqui
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Zbigniew Brzezinski — former Canadian and a McGill alumnus who rose to be Jimmy Carter's national security adviser — knows a thing or two about the broader Middle East, including Iran, having lived through the American hostage crisis on his watch.
I first met him in the 1980s in Pakistan while returning from Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, where he had helped initiate American support for the Afghan resistance. Now he is professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.I phoned him in Washington to ask about the American policy on Hamas, as well as the Iranian nuclear program, two issues on which the Harper government has stepped into line behind the Bush administration.Brzezinski is no fan of George W. Bush. But he is a highly regarded strategic thinker.On cutting off aid to the Palestinians for having elected Hamas, he said: "I think the American foreign policy is mindless. "When Likud came to power in 1977, it had a position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict not fundamentally different from the position of Hamas; that is to say, all of the former Palestine should be part of Israel. Some Likud officials even felt the Palestinians should be expelled physically across the Jordan River. But we did not isolate or embargo the Likud government. We kept talking to it and over a period of time, the position of Likud evolved to the point that Likud itself accepted a two-state solution. "I think over time, if we are intelligent and patient, one cannot exclude the possibility of a similar evolution taking place with Hamas." The U.S. decision last Tuesday to allow some money to flow indirectly to the Palestinians for only three months is "a step in the right direction." But it is the U.S. policy of punishing the Palestinians that needs to change, he says. "If they persist, they're going to create a crisis in the Palestinian territories and they will create renewed tensions between America and Europe," having "already greatly antagonized" the Muslim world, he says.On Iran, Brzezinski has strongly opposed military action. In a recent article for the International Herald Tribune, he wrote that attacking Iran absent an imminent threat and without Security Council approval, "either alone or in complicity with Israel," would make it "an international outlaw." Also, such an attack would drive up oil prices. It would "significantly compound ongoing U.S. difficulties in Iraq and in Afghanistan, perhaps precipitate new violence by Hezbollah in Lebanon." It would make the U.S. "an even more likely target of terrorism."Even issuing military threats to Iran is counterproductive, he said, since such threats "unite Iranian nationalism with Shiite fundamentalism. They also reinforce growing international suspicions that the United States is even deliberately encouraging greater Iranian intransigence."He told me that it is not enough for the Bush administration to say it wants a diplomatic solution while refusing to talk to Tehran.Washington must negotiate with Iran, just as it is doing with North Korea, rather than deal with Tehran through proxies.Dismissing Washington's "contrived atmosphere of urgency," he said: "There is no imminent threat and since there is time, several years at least, I think one can move patiently but purposefully forward."How to separate out Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Semitism from a considered and ultimately successful Western strategy to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons?"One has to wonder whether, in fact, he is not doing it deliberately in order to create tensions."In any case, it is the responsibility of the Iranians to rein him in. At the same time, it is our responsibility to realize that he is not the decision-maker. One should not confuse his title with his power."What should Canada do?"Canada has to determine its own position."Asked what lesson should be drawn from the fact that the world's greatest power is totally at bay in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, he said: "The lesson is to keep your fingers crossed for three more years."What happens in-between?"That's where the international community can try to do its best to make sure that it doesn't get any worse."
Haroon Siddiqui, the Star's editorial page editor emeritus, appears Thursday and Sunday. © 2006 Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
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