Scowcraft and Brzezinski on Iraq

Steve Clemons organized a meeting in which Brent Scowcraft and Zbigniew Brzezinski discussed the future for American foreign Policy. Steve has posted a transcript and a video

Steve also posted some comments written by Chris Nelson in his insider “Chris Nelson Report. I find the following excerpt especially chilling:

-- but, to repeat, it does not sound like either, but particularly Brzezinski, has much confidence that Bush and his top people have the moral or intellectual capacity to accurately diagnose the problems, much less to implement viable approaches.

4. On Iraq, the clearest headline from Scowcroft was his observation that the coming election, even if it takes place, "won't be a promising transformation, and it has great potential for deepening the conflict; we may be seeing incipient civil war at this time." And even if ultimate success is possible, it will be a 10 year process. Quite frankly, Scowcroft said, the current situation is so dire that the real question for today is the fundamental one of "whether we get out now"...by implication, before too much damage is done world wide.

-- "Zbig's" headline, arrived via a detailed discussion of the cascade, the reasons for it, and his forthright prediction that nothing less than 500,000 troops, $200-billion a year, a new Draft, and "war taxation" would be required to "prevail' in the long run. But, he noted, "Not even [a dictatorship like] the Soviet Union was prepared to [go to such extremes] in Afghanistan. There comes a point in the life of a nation when such sacrifices are not justified...and only time will tell if [the United States] is facing a moment of wisdom, or cultural decay."

So Zbigniew doesn’t think the current administration can diagnose the problems in Iraq, let alone implement solutions. Brent thinks the Iraq election in January is likely to lead to real civil war rather than any solution, and Zbigniew thinks that the military solution is at Viet Nam levels – a “solution” that is unlikely to be attempted.

That being the case, unless some miracle occurs the Iraq war will be going on in 2008 with no likelihood of solution even then.