[A-List] Brzezinski drops bombshell

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A political bombshell from Zbigniew Brzezinski

Ex-national security adviser warns that Bush is seeking a pretext to attack 
Iran
By Barry Grey in Washington DC
2 February 2007
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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.
See Also:
Steny Hoyer at the Brookings Institution
House majority leader lays out Democratic position on Iraq
[1 February 2007]
Stepped up US preparations for war against Iran
[1 February 2007]
Iraq’s colonial occupier, the US, denounces “foreign meddling”
[30 January 2007]
Bush authorizes shoot-to-kill policy against Iranians in Iraq
[29 January 2007]
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