Ex-national security adviser warns that Bush is seeking a pretext to
attack Iran
By Barry Grey in Washington DC
2 February 2007
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in the Carter
administration, delivered a scathing critique of the war in Iraq and
warned that the Bush administration's policy was leading inevitably to a
war with Iran, with incalculable consequences for US imperialism in the
Middle East and internationally.
Brzezinski, who opposed the March 2003 invasion and has publicly denounced
the war as a colossal foreign policy blunder, began his remarks on what he
called the "war of choice" in Iraq by characterizing it as "a historic,
strategic and moral calamity."
"Undertaken under false assumptions," he continued, "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 principles and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional
instability."
Brzezinski derided Bush's talk of a "decisive ideological struggle"
against radical Islam as "simplistic and demagogic," and called it a
"mythical historical narrative" employed to justify a "protracted and
potentially expanding war."
"To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider
Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a
self-fulfilling prophecy," he said.
Most stunning and disturbing was his description of a "plausible scenario
for a military collision with Iran." It would, he suggested, involve
"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 US blamed on Iran, culminating in a 'defensive' US
military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a
spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran,
Afghanistan and Pakistan." [Emphasis added].
This was an unmistakable warning to the US Congress, replete with
quotation marks to discount the "defensive" nature of such military
action, that the Bush administration is seeking a pretext for an attack on
Iran. Although he did not explicitly say so, Brzezinski came close to
suggesting that the White House was capable of manufacturing a
provocation-including a possible terrorist attack within the US-to provide
the casus belli for war.
That a man such as Brzezinski, with decades of experience in the top
echelons of the US foreign policy establishment, a man who has the closest
links to the military and to intelligence agencies, should issue such a
warning at an open hearing of the US Senate has immense and grave
significance.
Brzezinski knows whereof he speaks, having authored provocations of his
own while serving as Jimmy Carter's national security adviser. In that
capacity, as he has since acknowledged in published writings, he drew up
the covert plan at the end of the 1970s to mobilize Islamic fundamentalist
mujaheddin to topple the pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan and draw the
Soviet Union into a ruinous war in that country.
Following his opening remarks, in response to questions from the senators,
Brzezinski reiterated his warning of a provocation.
He called the senators' attention to a March 27, 2006 report in the New
York Times on "a private meeting between the president and Prime Minister
Blair, two months before the war, based on a memorandum prepared by the
British official present at this meeting." In the article, Brzezinski
said, "the president is cited as saying he is concerned that there may not
be weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, and that there must be some
consideration given to finding a different basis for undertaking the
action."
He continued: "I'll just read you what this memo allegedly says, according
to the New York Times: 'The memo states that the president and the prime
minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside
Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned
invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation.'
"He described the several ways in which this could be done. I won't go
into that... the ways were quite sensational, at least one of them.
"If one is of the view that one is dealing with an implacable enemy that
has to be removed, that course of action may under certain circumstances
be appealing. I'm afraid that if this situation in Iraq continues to
deteriorate, and if Iran is perceived as in some fashion involved or
responsible, or a potential beneficiary, that temptation could arise."
At another point Brzezinski remarked on the conspiratorial methods of the
Bush administration and all but described it as a cabal. "I am perplexed,"
he said, "by the fact that major strategic decisions seem to be made
within a very narrow circle of individuals-just a few, probably a handful,
perhaps not more than the fingers on my hand. And these are the
individuals, all of whom but one, who made the original decision to go to
war, and used the original justifications to go to war."
None of the senators in attendance addressed themselves to the stark
warning from Brzezinski. The Democrats in particular, flaccid, complacent
and complicit in the war conspiracies of the Bush administration, said
nothing about the danger of a provocation spelled out by the witness.
Following the hearing, this reporter asked Brzezinski directly if he was
suggesting that the source of a possible provocation might be the US
government itself. The former national security adviser was evasive.
The following exchange took place:
Q: Dr. Brzezinski, who do you think would be carrying out this possible
provocation?
A: I have no idea. As I said, these things can never be predicted. It can
be spontaneous.
Q: Are you suggesting there is a possibility it could originate within the
US government itself?
A: I'm saying the whole situation can get out of hand and all sorts of
calculations can produce a circumstance that would be very difficult to
trace.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/brze-f02_prn.shtml
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