Opinion Editorials, July 2007
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Another Spray of “Sapience No. 5” from Kissinger
By Ben Tanosborn
ccun.org, July 16, 2007
A week ago, Henry A. Kissinger was telling us by way of an op-ed that, “Whatever our domestic timetables, the collapse of the American effort in Iraq would be a geopolitical calamity.”
Another platitude from Henry! A master at giving questionable, and often ill-conceived, foreign policy advice, he always comes back years later spraying the pile of doo-doo he helped create with a spray, or two, from his bottle of Sapience No. 5. Great success at camouflaging the stink; however, we are not blind… and those fecal piles are still there.
It happened after Vietnam-Cambodia, the Indo-Pakistan War, Operation Condor, the Argentinean and Chilean coups, East Timor… and the list goes on. Dr. Kissinger has always provided well articulated reasons – which some of us view as excuses – why things may not have gone according to plan. It’s as if this reborn Niccoló Macchiavelli, serving all American presidents turned into princes, is here to remind us that, “Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion.”
Kissinger surfaces and resurfaces as America’s wise true and tried diplomacy expert. He is in foreign policy what Greenspan continues to be, post retirement, in economic policy. Here are two people who would have served mankind much better by choosing careers in other fields of interest, such as soccer and music. Instead, they ended up as colorful personages playing key advisory roles in foreign and economic policy. And for that turn of events we are paying, or will be paying, the piper for generations to come.
Whether is raw Macchiavellianism, some version of von Rochau’s realpolitik, or just a grown-in-America vision of galactic manifest destiny, Kissinger’s four decades of devout dedication to it has received mixed reviews in the short term; something which is bound to spell failure in the long term, certainly in the yet to be written history books.
America’s exit from Iraq will be a geopolitical calamity for the United States in its quest for regional dominance. But it won’t have to be a geopolitical calamity for the region itself other than perhaps Israel’s expectations, and even that is questionable if a plan for peace is quickly drafted and enacted for the region sans interference from the US.
The greater calamity will be for the US to insist in a continued presence there, including a prolonged military stay – regardless of stated reasons – whether in Iraq proper or any nearby Gulf locations, including Kuwait.
Just where was Dr. Kissinger during those six months preceding the invasion of Iraq? For all we know, he was probably advising our light-brained hierarchy at both the White House and Pentagon. And now he is writing an article giving “a political solution for Iraq”? Once again, just like all those other times in the past, he is taking all Americans for first-class chumps.
Iraq’s solution for coming out of this quagmire in which it was placed through criminal action of the US government does not reside in any Johnny-come-lately military options, such as Petraeus’ surge; or Senator Biden’s ill-conceived idea of partitioning Iraq; or the present course by Bush: “let me just gamble lives and money on this thing until I bust.”
Recently a paper by David Joseph of John Hopkins SAIS and Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institute promoted the same idiocy espoused by Sen. Biden. Apparently, these learned individuals failed to take a look at the sectarian-ethnic makeup of the many other Muslim nations, or they would not have recommended the lunacy of a Kurdistan, a Sunnistan and Shiistan for Iraq. What were they thinking, a model for the breakup of other Muslim nations? Did either think for a moment about Turkey, or the fact that it is our intromission that has instigated this sectarian chaos? Most importantly, doesn’t just the mere idea smack of unwelcome Western interference, the imposition of ideas by a new breed of crusaders?
The solution resides solely in the wise people in that region which extend from Turkey and Egypt to Iran, and all the nations in between. For Kissinger or anyone else in the US to formulate a plan, or even entertain the notion that America should have a primary role in bringing peace to the region is chimerical. We have done “our deed” creating the problem; let others with peacemaking skills solve it.
Heinz Kissinger might have made a name for himself as a player in Fußball-Bundesliga had he decided to stay in Germany after World War II. Instead, Henry returned to the States and the Halls of Harvard; and the world of adulation which resulted from peddling amoral and coercive advice – and influence – to the very attentive Washington political powers; and those in the corporate world, or even foreign states, willing to pay for it.
Just as Mr. Kissinger occupies a place of prominence and celebrity as a Nobel laureate, 56th Secretary of State for the US, and bearer of knowledge and wisdom in international affairs, he also occupies a slot of infamy in much of the world as facilitator, if not outright instigator, of genocidal events. Judges R. LeLoire (French), Baltasar Garzón (Spanish) and other jurists in the international community are very much interested in interrogating him on his purported genocidal antecedents. And they would be interested in direct, to the point, answers to their questions; and not to professorial bullshit.
Yes, that would be a calamity for Prof. Kissinger… one of geopolitical proportions!
Ben Tanosborn
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