No, I don’t like him. He’s an imperialist. But he is a realist-imperialist which is something I prefer over a neocon-zionist imperialist any day.
Zbigniew Brzezinski writes in tomorrows WaPo on The Smart Way Out of a Foolish War
The decision to militarily disengage will also have to be accompanied by political and regional initiatives designed to guard against potential risks.
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The longer [U.S. occupation] lasts, the more difficult it will be for a viable Iraqi state ever to reemerge.
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It is also important to recognize that most of the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq has not been inspired by al-Qaeda. Locally based jihadist groups have gained strength only insofar as they have been able to identify themselves with the fight against a hated foreign occupier.
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Bringing the U.S. military effort to a close would also smooth the way for a broad U.S. initiative addressed to all of Iraq’s neighbors. Some will remain reluctant to engage in any discussion as long as Washington appears determined to maintain its occupation of Iraq indefinitely. Therefore, at some stage next year, after the decision to disengage has been announced, a regional conference should be convened to promote regional stability, border control and other security arrangements, as well as regional economic development — all of which would help mitigate the unavoidable risks connected with U.S. disengagement.
The last graph is obviously from Pat Lang’s Concert of the Middle East paper written in late 2006.
More Z-Big:
[W]e should consider a regional rehabilitation program designed to help Iraq recover and to relieve the burdens that Jordan and Syria, in particular, have shouldered by hosting more than 2 million Iraqi refugees.
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The "unipolar moment" that the Bush administration’s zealots touted after the collapse of the Soviet Union has been squandered to generate a policy based on the unilateral use of force, military threats and occupation masquerading as democratization — all of which has pointlessly heated up tensions, fueled anti-colonial resentments and bred religious fanaticism.
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We started this war rashly, but we must end our involvement responsibly. And end it we must. The alternative is a fear-driven policy paralysis that perpetuates the war — to America’s historic detriment.
In the piece I excerpted above Z-Big speaks a lot about the "costs" of the war. While he talks about U.S. money, dead and wounded, he doesn’t mention any Iraqi "costs". He only "considers" some vague reparations …
He still wants a "residual force in Iraq" to prevent against outer "threats", which to him are al-Qaeda and Iran and not the much more likely Saudi-Sunni threat to overthrow any majority Shia government in Iraq.
Z-Big thinks that Iraq somewhat distracts from Afghanistan which is stupid. Afghanistan is a U.S. occupation for a flimsy reason just as much as Iraq is. It has to and will end the same way.
Still, Z-Big is an important voice in U.S. policy and he has international reach. Most of the right European parties are more near to Z-Big than to the Neocons. The piece above will have quite an effect there. In the Middle East he has some credentials to be more "middle ground" than most U.S. politicians.
So while this is far less than I would like, it is also by far the best U.S. position paper I have seen put forward by someone with a "voice" in a major U.S. media for quite some time.