Zbigniew Brzezinski, never known as a peacenik, warned in the
strongest terms, on the Charlie Rose show, that a U.S. attack on
Iran or Syria would be a disaster; instead, he urged, we should
be working with the Russians and the Chinese, to bring
stability to the region.
Brzezinski: Don’t Back Syrian Rebels
by EIR Staff
Oct. 27—Zbigniew Brzezinksi, the former anti-Soviet
hawk who, as Carter Administration National Security
Advisor (1977-81), helped create the rebel mujahideen
in Afghanistan, has vehemently rejected any proposal
for arming rebels in Syria. Speaking on PBS’s Charlie
Rose Show Oct. 23, the former Trilateral Commission
operative denounced the British and French for creating
the “mess” in Syria, and spoke of working with
Russia and China to find solutions to the region’s conflicts.
The alternative, he said, will be regional war.
In a webcast last night, Lyndon LaRouche assessed
Brzezinki’s radical turnabout, saying, “He now looks at
the world and says ‘Look, that time is over. There no
longer is a Soviet Union to worry about. There are no
longer these other kinds of things. I am an old man; I am
a Catholic; I’m a devoted Christian. And in my time, as
I’m reaching a terminal state in my life, what am I going
to do with the remainder of my life?’ And, therefore,
you have the case where someone who has acted like a
reprobate from the standpoint of looking in from the
outside, and you find that they’re coming out with a
completely different policy. It’s their own policy, for a
change. An old man who’s not going to go out of this
world without taking some honor with him.”
Rose’s program was on the theme of a recent paper
by National War College Prof. Michael Mazarr, that the
current U.S. strategic posture is unsustainable. Mazarr
was also a guest on the show, along with former Obama
National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones and Washington
Post columnist David Ignatius.
Host Rose asked Brzezinski how “strategic unsustainability”
applied to Syria. He replied that we must
consider, “What are the prospects, perhaps, of that war
rapidly spreading. Syria is next door to Iraq. Iraq is on
the verge of a breakdown between the Sunnis and the
Shi’ites, into a civil war. Syria is also on the brink, on
the edge, of the Kurds, and their role in the region. It
could be very, very destabilizing, if the war started
spreading. There is, of course, Iran next door, which
could become in some fashion involved.
“In brief, I have the feeling that it’s not exactly
within the realm of our means, of our resources, or
compatible with our recent experience, to enter the fray,
without thinking very seriously about the likelihood
that if we enter into it, particularly if we enter into it—
because we’re not exactly popular in the Middle East
these days—the result will be a much wider war, with
really serious consequences then for Turkey, and perhaps
for Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and because of its
economic consequences, for Europe. So I’m afraid that
the word I tend to emphasize in this context is ‘prudence,’
rather than ‘engagement.’ ”
Rose began a description of the Presidential candidates’
debate remarks about the various ways they
thought they might aid the Syrian opposition, and
Brzezinski interrupted, “You can’t start supplying arms
to someone, without becoming engaged in the consequences
of that! You can’t maintain that kind of sealed
detachment from the supply of arms, and eventually,
engagement in the process. Especially if the supply of
arms itself creates temptations to spread that war.”
Later in the show, Mazarr described how the Obama
regime is groping toward a Syria policy in the new paradigm,
potentially arming opposition groups, and a variety
of similar steps, “but they’re going to be very messy,
and they’re not going to satisfy a lot of advocates of
short-term action, and we’re going to have to keep at
them for a long period of time. It’s not going to be as
clean as advocates of intervention had once thought.”
An Extremely Volatile Region
Rose, off camera, asked: “Zbig, you’re smiling as
you heard him say that. What does that smile mean?”
The camera shifted to Brzezinski, who chuckled,
and smiling broadly, responded, “Well, I just don’t understand
how we can get involved in supporting and
arming, and thus intensifying, the makings of a civil
war, without thinking as to how long it may last, how
much blood will it consume, how deeply we’ll have to
become engaged, and how it might spread. This is an
extremely volatile region. You have to think of it, not
just as Syria, which is more that 20 million people. Yes,
30,000 have been killed, but it’s 20 million people, and
most of the 20 million people are still controlled by the
government. So we’re going to try to overthrow that. So
we’re going to make that civil war more intense, more
extensive, more bloody.
“And, it will affect the neighborhood, because it
will ignite the Sunni-Shi’ite conflict. It will destabilize
Jordan. It’s already destabilizing Lebanon. It might
draw in the Turks. Are the Turks prepared to lunge into
Syria? Maybe they would like us to clean up Syria, but
we have to ask ourselves about the consequences if we
try. Are we prepared to do it seriously, or are we just
going to provide arms, as it progressively gets worse? I
think after ten years in Afghanistan, after the mess in
Iraq, we’d better think calmly and coldly about this
issue. It’s very emotionalizing, because there’s a lot of
human suffering involved. But I would like someone to
lay out a blueprint for how this problem is to be solved
by us, starting first with arming the opposition—but excluding
an eventual massive involvement? And with
the region exploding?”
Work with Russia, China
To Rose’s question, “So, we do nothing?” Brzezinski
said there are a lot of other things we can do, and
advocated working with the Russians and Chinese to
develop a viable solution to be presented to the Assad
government as something workable—rather than dictating
to it our ideas, and then denouncing Syria’s refusal
to accept them.
He added, “I’m saying, let’s see if we can still do it
with the international community with us. And I think
that having the Russians and the Chinese [work with
us] is not yet to be excluded. We can’t really rely on the
advice of the French and the British, because they are
the architects of the mess that is now beginning to collapse”
(emphasis added). Rose hastened, as Brzezinski
was finishing that last sentence, to shift the discussion.
Near the end of the program, Brzezinski reiterated
the danger of triggering a regional war:
“There are two powers next to Syria, who are very
important, and very relevant to the future of what happens.
One is Saudi Arabia. We have to be very careful
about that, because the Saudis are deeply involved right
now, in fanning a Sunni-Shi’ite conflict in Syria. Is that
really in our interest? Are we really supposed to be supporting
that? And how will this impact on the Iranian
reaction? That’s something which I think warrants
some caution.
“The second one is Turkey. Turkey is an important
80-million country: 80 million people. It has the best
army in NATO, outside of the United States, actually.
What about the Turks? You’re going to have an American
involvement in arming the rebels, and potentially
an American engagement in the conflict?”
