Cover Story
"Entanglement without results"
Monday, 4/19/2004 12:00 AM
Mr. Brzezinski, in your early years you were an advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. The current debacle is reminiscent of Vietnam - a topic that is still the ultimate nightmare for Americans. Why is so difficult to forget this part of the past?
Brzezinski: Because of the impact it had on this country. Ultimately, President Johnson was forced out of office because the conflict was dragging on. President Nixon's political problems multiplied as a result of Vietnam. And Vietnam also left its mark on later presidents. In this sense, the echo of this era still exists today. However, a more appropriate analogy would be with Algeria in the late fifties.
SPIEGEL: What do you mean?
Brzezinski: An urban war of attrition was raging in Algiers, especially after the French defeated the National Liberation Front on the open battlefield in 1958. There were occasional terrorist attacks, following by interim periods of exhaustion, and there was a sense that everything was pointless. In Vietnam, there was an external withdrawal region and a regular army, which was being supplied with modern weapons, not just from the north, but also from the Soviet Union and China. There was a prolonged guerilla war with many victims.
SPIEGEL: What makes Vietnam so unique for America? Is it the unbearable concept that the USA was unable to defeat a "fourth-rate power," as Henry Kissinger called the North Vietnamese, or is it because the war turned into a moral catastrophe?
Brzezinski: What was more important was that we were not victorious in the war, although many an American found the moral dimension disturbing. But to arrive at a judgement based on moral considerations, you need more precise information, at least more than most people generally care to have. In the sixties, television was already playing an important role in forming public opinion. And what the Americans saw was a conflict that was dragging on, and they also saw the dead.
SPIEGEL: Like in Iraq today. Which mistakes or miscalculations have caused the debacle there?
Brzezinski: I believe that two miscalculations are responsible, or perhaps we are talking about deliberate misinformation. The first related to the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction, which were used as justification for the extreme approach, namely the unilateral use of force. And the second related to the foolish prediction that we would be welcomed there as liberators. In fact, at the highest levels in the administration, the invasion of Iraq was equated with the liberation of France in 1944. It appears that the Iraqis did not feel the same way, and I'm not surprised.
SPIEGEL: Because countries love being liberated, but do not love the liberators?
Brzezinski: This effect begins when the liberators stay in the country too long and when those who are occupied have no collective sense of guilt. We did not remain in France as occupiers. If we had stayed longer and had, for example, prevented de Gaulle from becoming France' leading figure, we would have forfeited sympathy. We were able to occupy Germany for a longer period of time, because a collective feeling of guilt about war crimes and a sense of being responsible for World War II existed there. The Iraqis are very worried that we will be in their country for many years. In the eyes of the Arabs, in fact, the conflict in Iraq has now become indistinguishable from the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Of course, they think that way because they may face the same fate as the West Bank, which has been an occupied territory for 37 years.
SPIEGEL: Just over a year has passed since the war began.
Brzezinski: That isn't a very long time, and there hasn't been any large-scale national resistance until now - although the current uprisings certainly give rise to concern. From the American perspective, the problem is dramatized by TV images. From the Iraqi perspective, the problem is growing because many Iraqi civilians are being killed.
SPIEGEL: The dilemma in Iraq is the occupation army's inability to guarantee security. What's going wrong?
Brzezinski: One can illustrate this by comparing Afghanistan and Iraq. There are difficulties in both places, but the problems are greater in Iraq than in Afghanistan.
SPIEGEL: Why is that?
Brzezinski: In Afghanistan, our European allies are making a significant contribution to stabilizing the country with their troops. They're also helping financially. In addition, many Afghans are our friends, because they are grateful to us for having helped them in fighting the Soviets. That's why there is a broad class of loyal Afghans who are on our side. In addition, the US ambassador ...
SPIEGEL: Zalmay Khalilzad, who was born in Afghanistan ...
Brzezinski: ... is more conciliatory and willing to compromise, so that problems that do arise can be resolved more easily. None of these three conditions exists in Iraq, and that is why the problems are increasing there.
SPIEGEL: What would be your advice - more ground troops?
Brzezinski: Yes, if they are necessary. But, at the same time, we must be more willing to transfer authority to the United Nations, as well as to work with the Europeans to develop a strategy for Iraq within the region. One step would be to refrain from such surprises as last week's joint Bush-Sharon statement.
SPIEGEL: In its current issue, Newsweek writes: "It's not a quagmire yet, but it already smells familiar."
Brzezinski: A reasonable sentence.
SPIEGEL: What is the greatest danger in Iraq?
Brzezinski: America's prolonged entanglement without clear results.
SPIEGEL: Is Iraq the right target in the so-called war on terrorism?
Brzezinski: "War on terrorism" - that's a phrase that doesn't mean much to me. It's as if one were to say that World War II was not waged against the Nazis, but against the "Blitzkrieg." Terrorism is a method. If we truly want to deal with the danger of terrorism effectively, we should ask ourselves: Who are these terrorists? Where do they come from? Instead, we use commonplace theological statements to talk about terrorism and we act unilaterally the way we are doing in Iraq, which will probably just increase the number of terrorists who wish to do us harm.
SPIEGEL: Terrorists have staged attacks on Bali and in North Africa, in Saudi Arabia and Spain. It is rather difficult to determine who was responsible in each case, and then to pursue them.
Brzezinski: It isn't really that difficult, and your list is incomplete. There are terrorists in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, in Israel, in Latin America and elsewhere. However, the terrorists in Kashmir do not attack Finland. They attack India. Those in Northern Ireland do not attack Americans. They attack the British. And those terrorists who do attack use and come from the Middle East hate us, so the question is: What motivates them? Sweeping statements simply blur the problem that terrorism raises for us.
SPIEGEL: What can be expect?
Brzezinski: We must anticipate further attacks on the United States, because we have expanded the conflict in the Middle East. From the Arab perspective, the issue is not just Iraq, but also the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. As a result, we are increasingly facing an attitude that this is a holy war.
SPIEGEL: President Bush now supports Israel's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. He also said, for the first time, that most of the settlements in the West Bank are "existing facts." This certainly helps Sharon, who is fighting for his political survival, but what does it trigger?
Brzezinski: The plan makes it difficult to achieve a compromised peace, one that we would hope Palestinians and Israelis could accept. It creates the risk that the Americans and the Israelis will impose peace on the Palestinians. If this occurs, they will lack legitimacy in the Middle East and, most likely, international support.
SPIEGEL: Bush wants to transfer power to a provisional administration in Iraq on June 30. Can he adhere to this deadline?
Brzezinski: I believe we must adhere to it, although we should admit to ourselves that this is nothing but a fictional date on which a fictional event will take place. What does granting sovereignty really mean? 135,000 American soldiers will remain in the country, Americans will continue to control security, and just about all of Iraq's overseas assets will remain under control. This can be nothing but a symbolic step, as long as the true attributes of sovereignty are missing.
INTERVIEW: GERHARD SPÖRL
Translated by Christopher Sultan