As Karzai Loses His Grip, A Familiar Face Looms
It wasn’t long ago that Afghan president was seen as a dependable U.S. ally on par with Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf. But as has fallen into violent chaos—along with Pakistan—tensions have erupted between Karzai and the United States and Britain. One of the most worried U.S. officials is Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan-born ambassador to the United Nations, who is seriously considering running for Karzai’s seat himself when the next elections are held in 2009, according to several U.N. and U.S. government officials. Last Friday, Karzai blocked the appointment of British politician , the former U.N. High Representative for Bosnia, as envoy to Afghanistan. During a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Karzai said that he and many Afghan parliamentarians did not want Ashdown in the post, according to a Western official briefed on the discussions who would only speak about them anonymously. Ashdown’s formal role would have been to coordinate international relief programs. But American and British officials were hoping that Ashdown might also act as a kind of viceroy, bringing order to an Afghan government that finds itself besieged by a resurgent Taliban. Karzai’s opposition grew as Ashdown sought to establish what his powers as “superenvoy” might be, one official said. “Karzai has been under a lot of pressure and criticism, and he might feel that he was being marginalized,” says Jim Dobbins, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.
U.S. and British officials have grown increasingly disenchanted with Karzai, who is now viewed as isolated in Kabul and surrounded by corrupt or incompetent ministers. Things are not much better next door in Pakistan, where militant Islamist groups have grown bolder and the embattled Musharraf is under pressure to step down. Like Karzai, Musharraf has begun lashing out publicly against what he sees as Western interference.
Khalilzad had a successful stint as U.S. ambassador to Kabul after the Taliban fell, helping to form the Karzai government and working with then Maj. Gen. David Barno, commander of U.S. forces, to pacify the country. He also served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq and was one of the principal drafters of a 1992 “grand strategy” for U.S. global dominance that became known as the “Pentagon paper.” Even so, in a 2005 interview with NEWSWEEK, Khalilzad said that one thing he had learned during his term in Afghanistan was that its people “don’t want to be ruled by a foreigner.”
Khalilzad has not directly denied that he is considering a run. His spokeswoman, Carolyn Vadino, told NEWSWEEK that “he intends to serve out his post as long as [President Bush] wants him in office. And then after that, he hopes to find a job here in the private sector in the U.S.” But a senior Bush administration official who knows Khalilzad (and who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Khalilzad’s plans) said the U.N. ambassador was actively exploring a run. Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan expert at Washington’s Congressional Research Service, said that “most observers think he would stand only if Karzai decides not to run.”
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Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad (زلمی خلیلزاد) (born 22 March 1951) is the current United States Ambassador to the United Nations. He has been involved with U.S. policy makers at the White House since the early 1980s. He is the highest-ranking Afghan-American and Muslim [Sunni] in the Administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. Khalilzad’s previous assignments in the Administration include U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq.
Zalmay Khalilzad was born in the city of Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan. Khalilzad’s father was a government official under the monarchy of Mohammed Zahir Shah.. He began his education at the private Ghazi Lycée school in Kabul. He went to the United States as a high school exchange student.
Upon graduating from high school, Khalilzad enrolled at Kabul University. In what he describes as “a prank,” he and his friends took tests for scholarships to study at the American University of Beirut, in Lebanon; to his surprise, he passed and was offered a scholarship. Khalilzad arrived at American University in 1970 and began studying political science and the history of the Middle East. There, he met his future wife, Cheryl Benard, an Austrian-born writer of feminist novels who was then conducting research on Arab nationalism for her dissertation.
Khalilzad attained his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, and received his PhD at the University of Chicago. There he studied closely with Albert Wohlstetter, a prominent nuclear deterrence thinker and an opponent to the disarmament treaties, who provided Khalilzad with contacts in the government and with RAND Corporation. Khalilzad’s wife is also a political analyst with the RAND Corporation
From 1979 to 1989, Zalmay Khalilzad was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. During that time he worked closely with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Carter Administration’s architect of the policy supporting the Afghan Mujahadeen resistance to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. (See: Operation Cyclone) [Carter was president from 1977-1981.]
In 1984 Khalilzad accepted a one-year Council on Foreign Relations fellowship to join the State Department, where he worked for Paul Wolfowitz, then the Director of Policy Planning.
From 1985 to 1989, Khalilzad served in President Ronald Reagan’s Administration as a senior State Department official advising on the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the Iran-Iraq war. During this time he was the State Department’s Special Advisor on Afghanistan to Undersecretary of State Michael H. Armacost. Khalilzad argued fervently that in order to ensure an Afghan victory, the U.S. should provide the Mujahideen with American heat-seeking stinger missiles, known to be among the most effective of antiaircraft weapons. The White House approved the recommendation, and in 1986 and 1987 approximately 900 stinger missiles were supplied to the Afghans.
Critics have pointed to Khalilzad’s 1985 recommendation that the U.S. supply the Mujahideen with stinger missiles as having provided the foundation of the brutal Taliban government and the springboard for Al Qaeda’s effective terrorist attacks.
From 1990-1992, Khalilzad served under President George H. W. Bush in the Defense Department as Deputy Undersecretary for Policy Planning.
In the early part of the Bosnian conflict (up until January 1993) Zalmay Khalilzad was in charge of strategic planning at the Pentagon.
Between 1993 and 2000, Khalilzad was the Director of the Strategy, Doctrine, and Force Structure at the RAND Corporation. During this time, he helped found RAND’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies as well as “Strategic Appraisal,” a periodic RAND publication. He also authored several influential monographs, including “From Containment to Global Leadership? America and the World After the Cold War.”
While at RAND, Khalilzad also had a brief stint consulting for Cambridge Energy Research Associates, which at the time was conducting a risk analysis for Unocal, now part of ConocoPhillips, for a proposed 1,400 km (890 mile), $2-billion, 622 m³/s (22,000 ft³/s) Trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline project which would have extended from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan and further proceeding to Pakistan. He acted as a special liason between UNOCAL and the Taliban regime.
He is one of the original members of Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and was a signatory of the letter to President Bill Clinton sent on January 26, 1998, which called for him to accept the aim of “removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power” using “a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts.”
In 2001, President George W. Bush asked Khalilzad to head the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Department of Defense and Khalilzad briefly served as Counselor to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In May 2001, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice announced the Khalilzad’s appointment as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Southwest Asia, Near East, and North African Affairs at the National Security Council. He remained at this position until September, 2003.
In December 2002 the President appointed Khalilzad to the position of Ambassador at Large for Free Iraqis with the task of coordinating “preparations for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.”After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, President Bush came to rely on Khalilzad’s Afghanistan expertise. Khalilzad was involved in the early stages of planning to overthrow the Taliban and on December 31st 2001 was selected as Bush’s Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan. He served in that position until November of 2003, when he was appointed to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan.Khalilzad held the position of U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from November 2003 until June 2005. During this time, he oversaw the drafting of Afghanistan’s constitution, was involved with the country’s first elections, and helped to organize the first meeting of Afghanistan’s parliament (the Loya Jirga). It was rumored by some that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was very reliant on Khalilzad’s guidance, including rumors that Khalilzad
pressured some candidates in the election to drop out, leaving Karzai with fewer opponents. However, Khalilzad denied this. During 2004 and 2005 he was also involved in helping with the establishment of the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF), which is the first western-style higher learning educational institution in Afghanistan.
Should a Republican win the 2008 Presidential Election, Khalilzad is widely speculated to be a leading candidate to become Secretary of State.
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Zalmay Khalilzad planning to stand for Afghan Presidency: report
British sources suggested that contrary to the official US position, Khalilzad had been warning Karzai that Ashdown was an interventionist figure and would weaken his authority still further.
The paper further said Khalilzad’s office at the UN last night denied he had any interest in standing for the Afghan presidency and rejected the suggestion he had undermined Lord Ashdown as a candidate for the UN special envoy’s job saying that Khalilzad had publicly ruled out running for president in Afghanistan and termed it as “ an old rumour that has been proved erroneous”.
The Guardian said Ashdown had spoken to Karzai about the appointment and agreed his job description, which would have been to coordinate the roles of NATO, the UN and the EU. But in the past week Karzai started to turn against the British, accusing their forces of losing their grip in the south of the country in the fight against the Taliban, and then making it clear to Gordon Brown and Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, that he would not support Ashdown’s appointment.
Some British officials, according to the daily, said Karzai’s decision to withstand the clear US demand for Ashdown will strengthen him with some Pashtun tribes in the short term. No one in British circles is accusing Karzai of corruption, but with the loss of support of the former Northern Alliance, the Afghan president is increasingly dependent on drug traffickers and warlords to maintain his political base.
British sources told the daily that they have no idea at this stage how they will
repair the damage caused by the Afghan president’s sudden change of heart, but without a clear alternative authority figure to Karzai, the west will have to soldier on with the current president for at least another year.
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United States Institute of Peace
August 1995 | Special Report No. 14
The Military Balance in Bosnia and Its Effect on the Prospects for Peace
Zalmay Khalilzad opened with the observation that the military balance in Bosnia has been the key variable in the failure of the international community to bring peace there. The Serbs have felt that they had more to gain on the battlefield than at the negotiating table because the balance favors them: they also demand a settlement that reflects the current balance. It is true that the international community has tried to affect the balance by imposing UN forces and establishing no-fly and exclusion zones. However, ambivalence among the powers and divisions between the UN and NATO have prevented the desired effect. Initially, said Khalilzad, the Serbs were uncertain about the effectiveness of the international community. By now, they are convinced that no outside military force will be a credible factor in the proceedings because of poor command arrangements, the vulnerability of UN forces, the weak authority of the commander, limited staff capability, and timid rules of engagement. For these reasons, the local balance of forces has not been affected.
The Current Balance of Forces
Khalilzad noted that it is really not easy to make definitive statements on the balance of forces at any given time: there are simply too many factors to consider. The Serbs by and large have the advantage in strategic geography and heavy equipment. The Serbs have operated adjacent to their supply sources in rump Yugoslavia and had the advantage of occupying rural areas, leaving the Bosnians in vulnerable towns. Their advantage in heavy equipment stemmed from the initial involvement of the Yugoslav army in the conflict. When the latter withdrew, it left its heavy equipment. Like Cigar, Khalilzad noted the manpower advantage of the Bosnian government, especially since the proclamation of the Federation with the Bosnian Croats.
Khalilzad provided a set of statistics (from UNPROFOR and U.S. government sources) comparing the state of the balance in 1993 with that of 1995; it showed a trend moving slowly toward improvement in the Bosnian position. He noted that the intelligence on tanks and artillery showed wide variations for 1995, more evidence of the difficulty of being definitive. (See table below.)
Balance of Forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina
| 1993 | 1995 | |
| Serbian personnel | 67,000 | 96-105,000 |
| Bosnian personnel | 80–100,000 | 220-266,000* |
| Serbian tanks | 350 | 390-450 |
| Bosnian tanks | 85 | 100-135* |
| Serbian artillery | 1,000 | 35-1,800 |
| Bosnian artillery | 107 | 86–760* |
| Serbian fixed-wing aircraft | - | 42 |
| Bosnian fixed-wing aircraft | - | 15* |
| Serbian helicopters | - | 30 |
| Bosnian helicopters | - | 12* |
* Includes both Bosnia government and Bosnian Croat assets.
Changing the Balance?
Khalilzad offered his views on possible objectives requiring various strategies and capabilities. He focused on how the balance could be changed to get the Serbs to negotiate on the 51-49 percent division of Bosnia proposed by the Contact Group and broadly accepted, except by the Bosnia Serbs. It would be possible to strengthen the Bosnian government either by lifting the arms embargo or providing the sort the military support allowed under the embargo.
Once the embargo was lifted, the United States could lead an international effort to provide weapons, intelligence, support, and training as the West did in Afghanistan. In Khalilzad’s view, when the West began aiding the Mujahedin in Afghanistan, the balance of forces was much less favorable to them than it now is for the Bosnian government. Even with the embargo in place, the United States could do more to strengthen the Bosnians. The embargo does not preclude providing training, nonlethal assistance, or even helicopters. Khalilzad asserted that if the United States had provided the same sort of assistance to Bosnia that it is currently providing to Slovenia–under the same embargo–the balance could have been positively affected.
The other way to change the balance to force negotiations would be to weaken the Serbs. Khalilzad asked why, when heavy weapons have been placed under UN supervision, they have not been disabled. That would surely have made a difference in the balance and still could. He conceded that to weaken the Serbs over the long haul, the UN force would have to be either withdrawn or reduced in size and reorganized under NATO command. Even without troops on the ground, airpower could make a major difference. It might not bring peace, bit it could shift the balance. Airpower could interdict forces on the move, disable heavy weapons, and disrupt supply lines.
According to Khalilzad, a deliberate Western strategy of weakening the Bosnian Serbs, consisting of a number of elements, could have been employed:
- Enforced SAM-, tank, and artillery-free zones around Sarajevo and other enclaves could have been established.
- UNPROFOR could have been recognized and reequipped with the mission of enforcing the tank- and artillery-free zones, for example, through firefinder radars. (this would have required resolving the command and control tensions between NATO and the UN.)
- To genuinely protect the “safe areas,” the forces on the ground could have been given the ability to defend in place against harassing attacks and to call in airpower against massed force.
- Airpower could have operated under rules of engagement that would allow attack with speed and sufficient force. They would have required employing UAVs, AC-130s, and U.S. Navy tactical reconnaissance and other sources for targeting to support tactical air forces for weapons delivery.
- All tanks and artillery detected in the safe zones could have been attacked without warning.
- To establish NATO freedom of air action, it would have made sense to set up SAM exclusion zones around artillery zones and country-wide SAM no- use zones. Aircraft with HARM missiles could have been employed to enforce such exclusion zones.
- NATO could have interdicted the movement of Serb Forces from the air. To deter the Bosnian Serbs from attacking international forces on the ground, a key feature of the strategy could have been to respond by attacking Bosnian Serb weapons in the other areas, as well as command and control centers and support systems.
This strategy, if it had been seriously pursued, could have had one of two results: the Bosnian Serbs might have come to accept the Contact Group plan, or the balance of power might have changed in favor of the Bosnian government, further increasing the pressure on the Bosnian Serbs. Such a strategy would have turned Bosnia into a quagmire for the Bosnian Serbs, not for the West.
The Prudent Way to Proceed?
Khalilzad summed up by saying that the absolute numbers and quality evaluations show that the Bosnian Serbs are not a very formidable military force. They have succeeded because of the weakness o the Bosnian government and their own brutality and determination. On the whole, Western reaction to the situation has made them more confident.
According to Khalilzad, there is no prudent way to proceed now without U.S. leadership: no strategy for success is likely without the United States at the center of it. Under the U.S. leadership, the international community should stick to the 51-49 percent arrangement and work to change the military balance by lifting the arms embargo, using NATO airpower effectively, or using a combination of the two. Unless the balance changes, neither a settlement nor long-term arrangements is likely. Unless the balance is changed, Bosnia would have to become an international protectorate in order to survive and that is not in the interests of the United States and other nations.
In closing, Khalilzad mentioned that the United States and its allies should also consider “holding Milosevic’s feet to the fire.” There are differences between Belgrade and Pale, the Serb and Bosnian Serb capitals, but Milosevic plays a key role, especially if the goal is to limit the capabilities of the Bosnian Serbs. In proceeding prudently, he warned, we must also be on guard against the possible spread of war beyond Bosnia to Kosovo and Macedonia.
Khalilzad agreed with the proposition that Bosnia is important to the United States. Indeed, twenty years from now, the conflict may be seen as the defining event in U.S. dealings with Europe and the Islamic world and with the peace and stability of the Balkans. Asking whether it was such a vital interest that we should risk a large number of casualties on the ground, he said that there was “a huge range of alternatives between doing nothing or something ineffective and going in a big way on the ground.” American airpower, weapons, training and intelligence could be used to shift the balance in a way that is consistent with our values and interests. Using ground forces is one solution, but the cost may be too high for us. If we choose not do that, we are not out of options. There are effective options “in between,” as the case of Afghanistan shows.
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From Byzantine Sacred Art
The Sovereignty Issue
Sovereign, Sovereigner, Sovereignest, USA
The AFP reported the US Ambassador to the United Nations said Thursday he was “outraged” by the storming of the US embassy in Belgrade by rioters protesting American-led West’s recognition of the illegally declared independence of southern Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija by the Pristina separatists.
“I am outraged by the mob attack against the US embassy in Belgrade,” Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters, adding he would seek condemnation by the UN Security Council.
“The embassy is sovereign US territory. The government of Serbia has a responsibility under international law to protect diplomatic facilities, particularly embassies.”
Infuriated by the West’s hypocrisy and double standards over the state of Serbia and its Kosovo province, several hundred of Serbian rioters stormed the US embassy in Belgrade before setting it on fire on Thursday, after a massive peaceful rally in the Serbian capital which, according to the BBC World reporter from Belgrade, Nick Hawton, has gathered more than 500,000 protesters.
But that’s not all. Khalilzad said he would “ask the 15-member Security Council to issue a unanimous statement expressing its outrage, condemning the attack and also reminding the Serb government of its responsibility.”
So, let me see if I get this straight: the US embassy in Belgrade is “a sovereign American territory” in Serbia, but 15% of Serbian state and a cradle of Serbia’s culture, faith and statehood—Kosovo and Metohija province—was not sufficiently sovereign Serbian territory the moment the US decided to seize it from Serbia?
US embassy was stormed by few hundred rioters and set ablaze
Under the International Law, We are All Unequal
Furthermore, United States of America is so threatened and aggrieved by Serbia that American officials are simply forced to resort to invoking the protection of the “international law”, reminding the Serbs of their “obligation” (“under the international law”, of course) to protect a building that was rented to American staff in Belgrade (all CIA agents, by the way). At the same time, those same officials have no qualms about being at the very helm of the International Law Violators Inc, responsible for the brutal trampling of the exact same international law, by going as far as following in the Hitler’s footsteps and redrawing Serbia’s internationally recognized borders to suit their present needs, feelings and moods.
The question is whether Khalilzad is talking about one and the same international law that, ideally, applies to everyone, or does he, perchance, have in mind some very special “international law” that applies only to small, defenseless states, expected to take all the illegal pounding by the US and behave, carefully abiding by that “international law” which the US and few others never have to respect.
Finally, and perhaps most insultingly, to demand that the UN Security Council issues a “unanimous condemnation” of Serbia for rioters storming the American embassy in Belgrade, after the US led NATO into the aggression on Serbia fighting foreign-funded terrorists and secessionists, after the US-led NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days, after the US orchestrated dismemberment of Yugoslavia, after it drew the borders over the life-tissue of Serbian nation in the Balkans, and after it imposed dismemberment of Serbia by officially recognizing part of Serbia’s integral territory as a separate state—all without ever coming close to the UN Security Council approval—is so cynical and offensive that a half-sane and barely decent person could never even consider suggesting.
Zalmay Khalilzad might as well forget about trying to force Serbs into submission with threats and punishments ever again, being that the country he represents has already done its worst and lowest to Serbs. He should also brace himself for much worse: Serbia is just getting warmed up.
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In a Washington Post op-ed, Zalmay Khalilzad calls on the US to deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan. “It is time for the United States to reengage.…The Taliban does not practice the anti-US style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran—it is closer to the Saudi model.” He calls on the US to help the Taliban “put Afghanistan on a path toward peace,” noting that continuing violence “has been a source of regional instability and an obstacle to building pipelines to bring Central Asian oil and gas to Pakistan and the world markets.”
- Washington Post, 10/7/1996
“It was Khalilzad—when he was a huge Taliban fan—who conducted the risk analysis for Unocal (Union Oil Company of California) for the infamous proposed $2 billion, 1,500 kilometer-long Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan [TAP] gas pipeline.”
- Asia Times, 12/25/2003
“Zalmay Khalilzad, already Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Gulf, Southwest Asia and Other Regional Issues, and a prominent neoconversative, is appointed by Bush as a special envoy to Afghanistan.”
- BBC, 1/1/2002
“In his former role as Unocal adviser, Khalilzad participated in negotiations with the Taliban to build a pipeline through Afghanistan. He also wrote op-eds in the Washington Post in 1997 supporting the Taliban regime, back when Unocal was hoping to work with the Taliban.”
- Independent, 1/10/2002
“Zalmay Khalilzad, a prominent neoconservative connected to top Bush administration officials, is appointed US Ambassador to Afghanistan. Ethnically Afghani, he had already been appointed special envoy to Afghanistan at the start of 2002. But it is increasingly obvious that the US effort in Afghanistan is not going well and Khalilzad’s appointment as ambassador reflects a new Bush administration resolve to devote more attention to Afghanistan. He had worked for the likes of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney in years past and is easily able to reach President Bush on the phone. Khalilzad agrees to take the job if the US expands resources in Afghanistan, and as he takes over the US gives $2 billion in aid to the country, double the amount of the year before.”
- New York Times, 8/12/2007
[Khalilzad is sometimes dubbed] “the viceroy, or the real president of Afghanistan.” [He is accused of] “frequently overshadowing President Hamid Karzai.… No major decisions by the Afghan government [are] made without his involvement.”
- BBC, 4/6/2005
“US Envoy Accused of Being the Power Pulling Karzai’s Strings.”
- London Times, 10/5/2004
“In Afghanistan, US Envoy Sits in Seat of Power.”
- New York Times, 4/17/2004
“The United States has told the Afghan guerrillas that it would support them in an effort to form a provisional government if they consolidate their control of most of the country and meet other criteria,’ the newspaper New York Times today quoted State Department officials as saying. A top State Department official made it clear that the government must oppose ‘the soviet-backed regime in Kabul’ and said that the USA did not ‘accept the legitimacy’ of the authorities in Afghanistan. The relevant message was delivered to the rebels in the Pakistani city of Peshawar last week by Zalmay Khalilzad, a special adviser on Afghanistan to under secretary of state Michael H. Armacost…”
- “U.S. To Support Afghan Counter Revolutionaries,” ITAR-TASS, May 6, 1988
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Le Nouvel Observateur: Former CIA director Robert Gates states in his memoirs: The American secret services began six months before the Soviet intervention to support the Mujahideen [in Afghanistan]. At that time you were president Carters security advisor; thus you played a key role in this affair. Do you confirm this statement?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version, the CIA’s support for the Mujahideen began in 1980, i.e. after the Soviet army’s invasion of Afghanistan on 24 December 1979. But the reality, which was kept secret until today, is completely different: Actually it was on 3 July 1979 that president Carter signed the first directive for the secret support of the opposition against the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And on the same day I wrote a note, in which I explained to the president that this support would in my opinion lead to a military intervention by the Soviets.
Le Nouvel Observateur: Despite this risk you were a supporter of this covert action? But perhaps you expected the Soviets to enter this war and tried to provoke it?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: It’s not exactly like that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene but we knowingly increased the probability that they would do it.
Le Nouvel Observateur: When the Soviets justified their intervention with the statement that they were fighting against a secret US interference in Afghanistan, nobody believed them. Nevertheless there was a core of truth to this…Do you regret nothing today?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: Regret what? This secret operation was an excellent idea. It lured the Russians into the Afghan trap, and you would like me to regret that? On the day when the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote president Carter, in essence: “We now have the opportunity to provide the USSR with their Viet Nam war.” Indeed for ten years Moscow had to conduct a war that was intolerable for the regime, a conflict which involved the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet Empire.
Le Nouvel Observateur: And also, don’t you regret having helped future terrorists, having given them weapons and advice?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: What is most important for world history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? Some Islamic hotheads or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Le Nouvel Observateur: “Some hotheads?” But it has been said time and time again: today Islamic fundamentalism represents a world-wide threat…
Zbigniew Brzezinski: Rubbish! It’s said that the West has a global policy regarding Islam. That’s hogwash: there is no global Islam. Let’s look at Islam in a rational and not a demagogic or emotional way. It is the first world religion with 1.5 billion adherents. But what is there in common between fundamentalist Saudi Arabia, moderate Morocco, militaristic Pakistan, pro-Western Egypt and secularized Central Asia? Nothing more than that which connects the Christian countries…
[Zbigniew is a Polish immigrant. His priority was weakening the Soviet hold on Poland.]
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August 13, 2008 at 4:42 am
[...] the role of Zalmay Khalilizad is relevant, especially considering his roles in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and [...]