Interviewer: BBC Washington correspondent, Katty Kay
Katty Kay: December 1991 was turning point in world history. The Soviet Union fell, and the US became the world's uncontested super power. In a new book, former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, looks at how each of the three presidents -- George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush -- have exercised this power. His conclusion: not very well! His book is called "Second Chance." Zbigniew Brzezinski joins me to talk about opportunities lost since 1990 and what he believes the US can do to become a more effective world leader. ... Zbigniew Brzezinski, your book, "Second Chance," starts with the collapse of the Soviet Union and America's new role in the world as the only super power. What do you think were the new responsibilities that came with the new role?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: The basic responsibility that came with the new role was to try to shape a world system more responsive to the new historical conditions. More responsive not only politically -- in the sense of the distribution of power -- but socio-economically, and also in terms of the new values. Because, as I argue in the book, what's particularly distinctive about our age is the worldwide -- I emphase "worldwide" -- political awakening of almost the entire humanity. Today the world is composed of politically-conscious, politically-stirring people. That makes it more difficult to manage, but it also makes it more important that we be responsive in some fashion to their aspirations. That's particularly the obligation of the number one world power.
KK: Take us back to 1991. It wasn't immediately clear, was it?, after the wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed, what the state of the world was going to be. There was a lot of unease. It was a murky position that the US found itself in.
ZB: You're absolutely right. In fact, one of my opening chapters is entitled "The Mists of Victory." Namely, in that moment of triumph we really weren't very clear what it meant, what it implied, what opportunities it created, and perhaps what dangers lurk in the background. And it took a number of years before two alternative, but in my judgment somewhat inadequate, conceptions of what that sort of world was like and what it needs emerged in the course of American debates. One being a kind of Marxist/determinist commitment to globalization as the solution for everything. The other one is somewhat Leninist/activist, a type of more militant doctrine, which the neocons articulated and which is the assertive and unilateral use of American power.
KK: There are those views starting to emerge in President Bush, Sr.'s term in office. But at the same time he is struggling to deal with events as they are unfolding at dizzying speed. You lay out things that happened in the space of about 18 months while he was in office. Extraordinary that a president -- and I'd forgotten until I read it all against, laid out there in the course of your book -- how much he had to take on board.
ZB: Yes. And I give him a lot of credit. His performance was remarkable. I doubt that Reagan would have done as well. I think he was remarkably skillful in handling the dissolution, the collapse, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc. And he was very effective, politically and militarily in the initial phases of the Gulf War, the war of 1991 to expell Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces from Kuwait. But now I go on to argue that, having dealt with these crises -- terminal crises of a previous era -- extremely well, he really did not seize the opportunity or leave behind an intellectual-political legacy for coping with the new challenges.
KK: So then President Clinton comes into office. He certainly does have an intellectual vision for the world -- but slightly different, isn't it?
ZB: Yes, he embraced with both hands, so to speak, the notion that globalization is the key to our era. He interpreted in an almost deterministic fashion that it has to happen, that it's kind of a self-fulfilling operative doctrine that is part of the transforming reality who are transforming that reality. In a sense that gave him confidence, enabled him to address new problems. But also, in a way, it made him strategically lax...
KK: ... strategically lax because he...?
ZB: ...was not prepared to tackle the hard choices which involve sometimes the use of power, sometimes the use of diplomacy. And I particularly fault him for the fact that, having the opportunity to resolve the Middle Eastern problem -- and he was, after all, in power for eight years -- he didn't really try until at the very last moment just before the presidential elections of the year 2000. Which makes you somewhat wonder whether it wasn't politically expedient rather than a serious effort. In any case, he didn't have time to succeed. As a consequence, he bequeathed to his successor a rather messy situation in the Middle East which in the meantime gradually became the central arena for testing America's capacity for leadership.
KK: Do you think President Clinton embraced globalization almost too wholeheartedly? that he had a somewhat overly optimistic view of the forces of globalization?
ZB: I wouldn't put it that way. I would put it slightly differently. I think he embraced it wholeheartedly but he didn't either personally promote or even symbolize the necessary element of self-restraint, self-discipline, self-denial that a genuine pursuit of globalization would entail. There was a self-indulgent quality to him personally. But also to the America over which he presided. And you can't fault him entirely for that fact. It was an America which in those good years of Clinton also elected a Republican Congress which believed in cutting taxes, which wasn't particularly interested either in ecology or foreign aid. There was a kind of self-indulgent mood not only in the White House but in America at large.
KK: One of the things that strikes me about your book -- and it does span only these 15 years -- is how much the same issues keep reemerging. You talk about President Clinton's handling of the North Korea crisis. You write that perhaps he wasn't tough enough, that he hesitated too much, and that sowed the seeds for the problems we're having today with North Korea.
ZB: Yes. I think one of the cases I make is that I don't think he handled non-proliferation very well because the fact is that on his watch India and Pakistan became overt nuclear powers, and it was on his watch that North Korea undertook a program the end result of which is still not determined but which in any case has menacing implications for the Far East. And it was on his watch that any dialogue with Iran that might have forestalled -- perhaps, and I emphasize the word "perhaps"! -- the Iranian nuclear efforts was not pursued.
KK: So it was during this decade when you've talked about globalization and Clinton that the emerging philosophies, if you like, of American foreign policy started to really take shape. And of course along side globalization is neoconservatism. Why did that originate as post-Cold-War philosophy for America?
ZB: I think largely because, as I said earlier, while all of that was going on increasingly the Middle East became the central arena for testing American leadership in terms both of principle and power... to use a shorthand formula of which I'm fond! There was a constituency in the US -- an intellectual constituency which had a very muscular view of how to deal with the Middle Eastern problem. It crystalized even in the form of letters to President Clinton, to Prime Minister Netanyahu and so forth. That group of people who had that view that this is the place where American power ought to energetically be applied were people who, at the same time took advantage intellectually of two major works which, in my view, were not written to help the neocon cause but were seized by the neocons and exploited for their strategic purposes. One is the well-known book by Frank Fukuyama called "The End of History," namely from now on democracy rules the roost no matter whence it originates and how; and the other one was Samuel Huntington's "A Clash of Civilizations." Both of these were adapted into the newer doctrine and given a strategic edge of the kind that neither Fukuyama nor Huntington were advocating! But it gave that neocon doctrine greater coherence and seemingly intellectual depth.
KK: Do you think, though, that without the attacks of September 11, neoconservatism might have remains a rather obscure philosophical standpoint?
ZB: I think you're quite right. That is exactly the point. Namely: this doctrine existed, these pressure groups were there, and then 9/11 became the catalyst that shook everything up and then the president's specific reaction after a single day of either hesitation or non-visibility -- the president then decided to make 9/11 the clarion call for his political stand.
KK: ...We've talked about the first President Bush; we've also talked about Bill Clinton. Let's move on to the second President Bush. At some point in your book you give a table -- almost like a grade table -- of how the three presidents have fared in terms of American foreign policy. Tell us a little bit about their different styles and how they fare, in your opinion.
ZB: Well, in effect, it's like a school report card! My assessment of the first President Bush is that he was very effective tactically but he fell short strategically coping with the novelty of the situation and I give him an overall grade of B. That's subdivided into a lot of specific grades. Clinton gets a C largely because of the missed opportunities and specifically because of the absence of any success in the Middle East, non-proliferation, and so forth. President Bush 2, the current president, I'm sad to say as an American citizen -- he gets an F because I think his policy has destroyed America's credibility. Credibility is an important ingredient of international power. He undermined American legitimacy. Legitimacy is also an important ingredient of power. And he has destroyed the international respect for American military power by getting bogged down, ineptly, in the Iraqi war which he shouldn't have started and which he promoted on the basis of very dubious allegations. So all of that has placed America, in my view, in a very awkward international posture: isolated, viewed with hostility by much of the world, and potentially vulnerable to a suction effect of ongoing conflicts in the Middle East which could even widen the scope of existing conflicts. I have in mind the possibility of some perhaps unintended escalation or collision with Iran which might take place in the next 20 months and which then would deny his successor, in my view, the opportunity of a second chance.
KK: You describe President Bush as a "vigilante." That's pretty harsh, isn't it?
ZB: Well, that's a very shorthanded formula. Beginning the summary, I said President Bush 1 was like a global policeman -- "new world order" but based on legitimacy. I forget exactly the words I used regarding Clinton, but I say he was like a social advocate, believing that social progress is inevitable and therefore, in a sense, being self-indulgent in promoting it. I say Bush is like a vigilante who organizes a response to what he perceives to be an act of evil, but it is a very unilateral response.
KK: The current President Bush was, of course, faced with the attacks of 9/11. I remember very clearly the day after those attacks when the headline in Le Monde newspaper was saying "We are all Americans." It seems a very far cry from the situation America has in the world today. Do you think that President Bush misunderstood the forces that were driving Islamic extremism and because of that misunderstanding alienated America's allies?
ZB: Yes, I agree, but not entirely with the choice of words. I don't think he misunderstood. I think he has decided -- simply -- to interpret what drives these forces in a very simplistic, somewhat Manichean fashion. He uses such phrases as "They hate freedom, we love freedom; they hate things; we love things (whatever that means!)," and the notion that you're dealing simply with a collision between good and evil means that you don't have to ask yourself the more difficult question. Yes. Terrorists are evil. Yes, they have to be extirpated. But, I would think, you would also want to know what produces them! How do you make certain that they're not reproduced if you extirpate them? And that means logically that you have to ask yourself what are the conditions, events, historical experiences, ongoing political resentment that generate terrorism. He has also adopted, in my view, a notably vacuous definition of the conflict calling it "a war on terror"-- which is kind of a meaningless term. It's like calling World War II a war on Blitzkrieg. Terror is a technique for killing people. It doesn't tell you who the enemy is or why he is the enemy.
KK: If there is a new president in two years time, what is the "second chance" for that new president?
ZB: To restore America's credibility. To restore America's legitimacy. To use American power and influence. To mobilize other states in seriously addressing the new problems we all confront, which are the problems of dignity for billions of politically-awakened people, of eventual evolution towards democracy for those who still do not have it but not by rapid revolution or imposition through force. It means addressing the social problems of justice and inequality. It means focusing on ecology. It means having a globalist policy that responsibly addresses the reality of genuinely global problems and not pursuing, as I've written recently, a kind of imperial policy in the post-imperial age, a kind of colonial policy -- "We know better than others and we're teaching you" -- in the post-colonial age. I think that kind of policy is doomed to be resented, resisted, and eventually to fail.
KK: You call that new American president "Global leader 4," looking at your span of the years and the presidents that have taken over. Are you optimistic when you look at the candidates in the field that the "global leader 4" is there, who can take on the challenges that you describe?
ZB: Yes, I am up to a point. That is to say, I see both among the putative Republican candidates maybe one individual that I would think has that sense of historical awareness. I think that is the case with perhaps more than one on the Democratic side. So I am optimistic in that respect. But at the same time I am concerned that their freedom of choice to do what is needed, to exploit the second chance, may be limited by what can still happen in the next 20 months.
KK: We have an email here: "Would you describe the war in Iraq as a total failure of US diplomacy? Was our clout already diminished before going to war?"
ZB: I don't think it's a failure of American diplomacy because I don't think American diplomacy was tried in the case of Iraq! I think our clout has been so diminished, perhaps not so much with respect to Iraq specifically, but more generally in regards to the Middle East by 1) not being willing to exploit the occasional and certain opportunities of promoting positive evolutionary change within Iran and in relations with Iran, and 2) not exploiting the opportunity the US has had for quite some time to use its influence to promote a genuine Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.
KK: You talk about the area around Afghanistan as the global Balkans, the Middle East and perhaps some of the subcontinent there. We have a call from Sayeed in Lawton, VA, to talk about Afghanistan.
Sayeed: Mr. Brzezinski, you are a person who really helped the people of Afghanistan during the Russian occupation and you brought the real American values there and that resulted in the defeat of the Red Army and the people of Afghanistan are very grateful for that. My question is: Now the Western powers have been forced to be there again and they are in a dilemma. The situation is not getting well as it should. What do you think are the options for the Western powers now in Afghanistan, and especially for the United States of America?
ZB: Well, you've raised a very difficult and important question. There are no easy options, first of all. But I do have a sense of uneasiness regarding the tendency simply to respond by building up NATO forces, including American forces. I fear that over time that will create a sense of resentment among the Afghan people who value their own independence with real passion. And who may begin to view us -- whom they have viewed as friends and allies -- increasingly as foreign intruders. I think it's increasingly important to give Afghanistan a lot of money but also recognize the diversity of that society, its traditional divisions, and to operate not in a manner which seems to be aiming at transforming rapidly Afghanistan into a modern democratic state run by centralized government from the top down. I think we have to recognize the traditional diversity of Afghanistan and operate through it indirectly.
KK: What do you mean by the phrase "global Balkans"?
ZB:... I simply draw an analogy to the European Balkans. The European Balkans were a region where the name "Balkans" acquired a negative meaning -- that was torn by tremendous internal conflicts, religious, ethnic, and so forth, which had a suction effect on the outside powers and created major conflicts. The area from the Suez to Sinjang, from Russia's southern frontier to the Indian Ocean -- about 500,000,000 people -- is the modern equivalent of the global Balkans. It's already sucking in the US. It has also sucked Russia in at one point. Certainly China and India are affected and interested. It's a region which, in the first instance, may have the effect of getting us bogged down for a very, very long time if we're not very careful.
KK: But is that an inevitable consequence of globalization, do you think, that...
ZB: ...No! I don't think so! I think it's an inevitable consequence of regional turmoil but the lack also of strategic prudence and calculus on the part of the US.
KK: We have an email here that talks about globalization: "...what the US might do to turn globalization into a win-win situation rather than what it currently appears to be doing."
ZB: That's a question that could take some hours to answer but I'm going to be very brief! I think that one has to recognize that globalization is fundamentally a good thing in the sense that it responds to the reality of the world that for the first time a single word, "world." One has also to recognize that it breeds inequality, privileges, advantages and disadvantages and that have to be corrective to globalization which takes that into account. Take for example NAFTA. It's been good for America and Mexico but it's also been very bad for a lot of Mexican farmers.
KK: On the phone we have Brandon from Indiana.
Brandon: You and your guest were talking about how 9/11 was a catalyst for all the events going on in the Middle East right now. I'd like to hear your guest's opinion of President Bush and his relationship to the events of 9/11, specifically President Bush's refusal to come before the 9/11 Commission without Dick Cheney -- and in private -- and I guess ...the whole 9/11 truth movement online. What's his opinion on that?
KK: Really what I think we're talking about is whether the whole truth of 9/11 and perhaps the relationship of that with the war in Iraq has come out?
ZB: Well, it's very hard to say what one thinks about something when one doesn't know and that's the problem. Of course, it's always possible that there is much more to be known than is currently known. I can't exclude that. The 9/11 Commission was the first attempt to scratch at the surface of the historical record. My guess is that probably over time, as documents become more available, as people write their memoirs, as others probe, more will be learned. But until we know what that might be, it's awfully hard for me to comment intelligently.
KK: Another question here on 9/11 and whether this really was the changing point. Patrick in North Carolina:
Patrick: I'd like to ask Dr. Brzezinski if the presence of neoconservatives in the Bush administration before 9/11 would really kind of have determined the course of events regardless of whether 9/11 happened? I mean people from the Ford administration -- Cheney, Rumsfeld -- were kind of committed to this ideology and were going to act on it anyway, weren't they?
ZB: Well, yes. That's quite true probably in a general sense. But specific events can be very transforming and 9/11 made the American public much more receptive... to the notion of a war of choice. After all, the decision to attack Iraq required Congressional support, required support from many Democrats. That was made easier by the shock effect of 9/11 with the feel of America being beleaguered, by the seeming credibility of the argument that in some fashion Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with the perpetrators of 9/11, something which we now know more clearly was not the case. It made it easier to scare people into believing that Iraq was on the brink of having the most destructive weapons of mass destruction. Condi Rice talked about a "mushroom cloud." All of that facilitated, perhaps, the implementation of a predisposition -- that was in any case strong within the new team. But without 9/11, it would have been very difficult I think for them to move the way they did.
KK: One question that I have in terms of what you were saying about the global leader -- "global leader 4" -- do you think that the differences, the cultural differences, between Europe and America, which seem to be growing larger, might outweigh the possibilities of political reconciliation?
ZB: Yes, I think there is a risk of that. Certainly that risk will be vastly increased if some of the negative things that I feel could happen do happen. But I would think that any next president of the US would make a very determined effort to bridge the differences that now divide us across the Atlantic. I would also think that any settled, responsible European leaders would want to meet them halfway. I think we both realize that our fortunes, our future are intertwined and it's in our mutual interest to promote a close alliance.
KK: We're getting a lot of very interesting emails. One of them I want to put to you now, Dr. Brzezinski, talking about when the Soviet Union collapsed and the US was the only remaining super power. The question is whether the US is still "the last world power"?
ZB: No, I don't think so. Now obviously, if the world becomes more integrated and more cooperative, creatively and constructively addresses the problems we have been talking about, then the notion of the single dominant power will gradually fade. But I think that will take some time even if the US becomes very constructive -- after 2008 -- and plays the kind of role it should. I think it will be an evolutionary process of increasing integration between major interests and a common response to the total global problems. But that's the optimistic scenario!
KK: Do you see China becoming more of a political super power? Up until now, it's been largely an economic power, but if you look at the way it's expanding its power in the Middle East and in Africa, could that be a counterpoint to American super power?
ZB: China will be a great power. But for a long time it will still be beset by tremendous legacies of the past: an impoverished infrastructure and all the domestic problems associated with that. But -- again -- if China is integrated into the system, then the whole notion of strongly separate and demonistic world powers made fade from the scene. If America falters, then indeed China is probably the most likely candidate for the next major, perhaps dominant, power.
KK: There's something you write about in your book that's a very interesting question [about which] we've got an email here. "How much do you think presidents reflect the tone and mood of their time, and how much do you think they set the mood and tone?" That's from Deborah in Miami.
ZB: Well, that's a very difficult question to parse. Obviously the two are interrelated. I think both Clinton particularly but also Bush 1 reflected their conditions. That is to say, Americans were pleased to have won -- they didn't quite understand what was involved and they were inclined to take a back seat, to be complacent. That was particularly the case with the American public under Clinton and Clinton himself. I think George Bush 2 tended to shape the American public to a large extent after 9/11by stimulating an atmosphere of fear. This is something for which I criticize him severely because I think it has hurt America. He has isolated us but has also hurt us, because traditionally we have been an optimistic not a fearful people. I think the notion that we are totally, totally under threat and that everybody has to be looking out and reporting suspicious activity -- etc. etc -- is pernicious. That's been shaped largely from the top down.
KK: We've talked about the decline of the Soviet Union. We have a caller here, Missad from Ft. Lauderdale.
Missad: I enjoy your conversation with Mr. Brzezinski very much and I like his comments. Obviously he has a very in depth understanding of the issues. I want to ask him to comment -- because I know he's very knowledgeable on the issue of Chechnya. This is a forgotten issue and I believe it's immoral silence of the world and the US about Russian attempts to commit genocide against this brave and freedom-loving people.
ZB: In my book I do address the issue of Chechnya and I say that's one of the inadequacies of US policy toward the new Russia both under President Clinton under President Bush 2. I think the neglect, in turn, encouraged within Russia a great influence for the more military police force, the security forces, army officers --many of whom were engaged not only in atrocities in Chechnya but also in business activities in exploiting that conflict. I would have thought in those years when we had a lot of influence with Russia, there was a way of intelligently addressing that issue and perhaps becoming more active in promoting some sort of an accomodation which would have given the Chechens the kind of independence they seek, perhaps within -- within -- some framework of a Russian federation so that Russia's traditional interests would be accomodated. But we were passive. Worse than that, we even justified some of the Russian activities.
KK: Dr. Brzezinski, you talk about the need for integration of different countries, perhaps balancing out US supremacy by integrating other countries. How does Vladimir Putin fit into that scheme of things?
ZB: Well, he fits into that scheme only partially because he's essentially an historically transitional figure. He is the last gasp of the Soviet elite, a product after all of the KGB. But he's also a younger man, a new man, recognizing new realities. But still driven very much by nostalgia for great power status, separate world role for Russia, which is unreal: Russia simply cannot play that role anymore. I suspect that after he has faded from the scene, perhaps within a decade or so, there will be new Russian leadership which will recognize that Russia's future, if it is to have a future and if it is to retain the far east with all of its mineral wealth, is -- by becoming more closely linked to the West, to Europe, and through Europe to the Atlantic community. Tha is the only choice for Russia. If it tries to play a solitary game, it may end up losing the far east.
KK: Here's an email for you from Steve in Washington. He remembers you when you were a professor at Columbia, and he said you were a "strong supporter of further US involvement in Vietnam. In retrospect, do you believe that your position was wrong? Would you not say that US involvement both in Iraq and the Middle East is much more in the national interest?
ZB: I was not in favor of further US involvement in Vietnam. I was in favor of, and defended, US involvement in Vietnam until 1968. At that time I was the foreign policy advisor for Vice President Humphrey who was campaigning for the presidency and by then I had reached the conclusion that the US would have to disengage and strongly urged the Vice President to make that public which he hesitated to do because of his sensitivity towards Lyndon Johnson. But eventually he did. I also at the time visited Vietnam, made an assessment and wrote a report for Clark Clifford which is available in the archives and in which I said "this war should not be waged by the US. We should give support to the South Vietnamese but it is their war to win or to lose."
KK: Let's get more on your positions, now. Mogow from Dallas:
Mogow: My question is in regard to you and President Carter. Don't you think what we're doing through right now is because of you guys letting Iran [?] letting the Shah go and it's kind of retroactive [?] of letting the the mujahadeen and Taliban go in Afghanistan over the years and now thirty years later you're paying the price of your policies during those times?
ZB: You say we let Iran go. We didn't want Iran to be taken over by Khomeini but the administration of President Carter concluded that the task of determining how Khomeini is to be stopped, if he is to be stopped, is an Iranian responsibility, not an American responsibility. We were not occupying Iran. Iran was not our satellite -- even though it was associated with us and we supported the Shah. But it was the Iranian leadership that made the decisions that it did. I personally didn't think the Shah should flee the country. I didn't think the military should acquiesce to the takeover by Khomeini and his associates. But it was the Iranians who made these decisions. I don't think these decisions were desirable or felicitous. But they were Iranian decisions regarding Iran...
KK: Do you think there's a relationship between the Iranian extremism we're seeing today in much of the Middle East and the Iranian revolution? Did things change fundamentally then?
ZB: Yes. I think that certainly has had a lot to do with it. I think the war in Afghanistan radicalized the Moslem world and the West failed to follow up on the Soviet departure from Afghanistan by not rapidly moving in and helping recover -- which helped to foster the Taliban movement. I think the absence of serious progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict radicalized quite a few Arabs and made them much more hostile towards the US. So it's a series of interlocking events that have cumulatively created the kind of mess we both confront and are in the midst of.
KK: Another question: Jamie from Greenville in Mississippi:
Jamie: I do admire your openness in answering these questions, Dr. Brzezinski, and you seem to not take one particular political side or the other. My concern has to do with two areas. First, there's been little discussion of religious reciprocity in all this talk about freedom in Afghanistan and in Iraq -- and in Saudi Arabia.
KK: Jamie, what do you mean by "religious reciprocity"? Jamie: There seems to be a hesitation or embarrassment to include that when people like President Bush and his delegates go to these places. I am personally... I am embarrassed when I see our leaders go to these places and they claim they have to cover their heads and so forth to respect the local culture. At the same time, I feel embarrassment (and I'm not one of those evangelical Christians or anything) because it seems an offense to the American representative to be there doing this. There just seems to be an embarrassment to speak of certain things of this nature. I wanted to know Dr. Brzezinski's views on that... that's what I mean by religious reciprocity. And also refugees. They have no intention of assimilating or integrating into Western culture.
ZB: First of all, we have every right to subscribe to our views and traditions. But we have to be respectful of others and if over time they change, that's good. And if they change the way we'd like them to change, that's even better! But I think by flaunting our own traditions and manners to others, I don't think we advance change within those societies which are very different from ours. As far as Moslem immigrants are concerned, my impression is that the American Moslem community has shown remarkable loyalty to America -- quite in contrast, in fact, to Moslem immigrants in Europe. I think that has something to do with traditional American tolerance. And I think the traditional Moslem community in this country ought to be praised, and Moslems in this country should not be discriminated against or singled out for suspicion.
KK: Do you think that lack of cultural awareness is a pervasive problem in American foreign policy?
ZB: I think lack of understanding of the rest of the world more broadly is a pervasive problem. It's staggering in fact. In our schools we teach very little world history. We don't teach global geography. In the recent National Geographic poll, a sensationally high percentage of young Americans -- college students or high school students -- couldn't identify on the map where Great Britain is. Something like one third couldn't locate the Pacific Ocean!
KK: Is it changing? Is it improving, do you think?
ZB: Slowly. Because of the internet and world events. But by and large most Americans don't get the news. Local news is local news. Local newspapers are local newspapers. It's a democracy, one which is the number one world power but largely oblivious of the complexity of global conditions.
KK: You mentioned that people can't find Great Britain. But I know there are also polls showing people can't find Iraq on a map and the Middle East is really key to American foreign policy. Jamal in Michigan has a question for Dr. Brzezinski:
Jamal: My question is: Is there any realistic hope for peace in the Middle East while AIPAC continues to exist as the ultimate arbiter of power when it comes to Middle East policy -- especially with the Congress?
ZB: Well, clearly I don't think any one particular group should be the arbiter of power. And I don't think AIPAC is to that extent. I think American politicians pay obeisance to it for various expedient reasons. But American policy toward the Middle East can be, in my view, far more constructive and creative than it is. It isn't for very narrow, specific historical reasons connected. Particularly with the events of 9/11, earlier under Clinton by moving rather towards a pro-Israeli position, but I think most people nowadays realize that, if there is to be peace between Israel and Palestine, the US has to be involved, it has to be a mediator and arbiter and it has to promote the basic principles which, by and large, most people know what they ought to be but are not prepared publicly to say it, particularly the governments concerned are not prepared to say. This is where American can play a very creative role by putting on the table the essential parameters of a peace settlement.
KK: Do you think the Middle East is going to be the key in the next president's term as it has been over the last decade?
ZB: Oh, absolutely! I think that, assuming we don't get into a worse jam, the next president will have to deal, one way or the other, creatively and I hope successfully...
KK: ... And the situation is much harder now for whoever takes over...
ZB: Absolutely. And it could get even worse in the next 20 months. But if it doesn't get worse, then I think the next president will have a chance to do something. If it gets worse, the next president may not have those options.
KK: But if you look at the intrangiable [intractable?!] now between Hamas and the rise of Hezbollah in the region -- even if there isn't an Iranian engagement -- isn't the Middle East going to be an extremely difficult problem for whoever is the next president?
ZB: Well, of course! It's going to be terribly difficult. But the point I'm making is that the parties themselves cannot resolve these problems. And if they're not resolved with our active involvement, they'll get worse rather than better.