Israel Matzav

Obama gets a Zbig endorsement

If any of you are still looking for a reason not to support Barack Hussein Obama, I have another one for you: Obama was endorsed today by Dhimmi Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski (or Zbig as we used to call him when I was a Columbia undergrad).

Obama ``recognizes that the challenge is a new face, a new sense of direction, a new definition of America's role in the world,'' Brzezinski said in an interview on Bloomberg Television's ``Political Capital with Al Hunt.''

``Obama is clearly more effective and has the upper hand,'' Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, said. ``He has a sense of what is historically relevant, and what is needed from the United States in relationship to the world.''

...

Brzezinski also sided with Obama, who was criticized by Clinton as being ``irresponsible'' and ``naive'' for saying he would meet in his first year as president with leaders of adversaries such as Iran and Syria. ``What's the hang-up about negotiating with the Syrians or with the Iranians?'' Brzezinksi said. ``What it in effect means'' is ``that you only talk to people who agree with you.''

This ought to give you some idea where Brzezinski stands on Israel. It's from the height of last summer's war in Lebanon:

4. Brzezinski stated: "I hate to say this but I will say it. I think what the Israelis are doing today for example in Lebanon is in effect, in effect -- maybe not in intent -- the killing of hostages. The killing of hostages."

"Because when you kill 300 people, 400 people, who have nothing to do with the provocations Hezbollah staged, but you do it in effect deliberately by being indifferent to the scale of collateral damage, you're killing hostages in the hope of intimidating those that you want to intimidate. And more likely than not you will not intimidate them. You'll simply outrage them and make them into permanent enemies with the number of such enemies increasing."

...

6. It's becoming increasingly difficult to separate the Israeli-Palestinian, problem, the Iraq problem and Iran from each other.

The next line - left unsaid - is that the way for the US to extricate itself from Iraq is to sacrifice Israel on the altar.

Captain Ed reminds those who have forgotten just how bad Carter's foreign policy was:

Brzezinski's advice led in part to one of the worst periods of retreat of American influence in the last century. The refusal to support the Shah led to the coup in Iran that gave the radical-Islamist movement its first big victory and validation -- and allowed state-supported terrorism to flourish. Brzezinski gets credit for pushing for a military operation to free the embassy hostages after Carter let them sit in Teheran for five months, but the operation was an unmitigated disaster -- poorly planned and resourced.

Carter also managed to help create our other major foreign-policy headache, too. He famously bussed Soviet premiere Leonid Brezhnev on the cheek and assured the Soviets that we would not act confrontationally, pretending that the Cold War didn't exist. The Soviets responded by invading Afghanistan, secure in the knowledge that Carter would not take action to stop them -- especially given his flabby response to the Iranian embassy sacking. That led to the creation of the mujaheddin, which the West supported against the Soviet occupation, and that led to the Taliban takeover after the Soviet withdrawal.

How much did Zbig have to do with our feckless foreign policy regarding the Soviets? He was more of a hawk than Cyrus Vance, but then again, almost everyone was more of a hawk than Vance, except Jimmy Carter. He never bothered to resign in the face of disaster after disaster, and he was the man who created the mujaheddin counterstrategy in Afghanistan, and Zbig drafted Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to support them.

Maybe Barack Obama can get Carter's economic adviser, Charles Schultze, to endorse him as well. That way he can campaign clearly on a return to Carter's policies.

A vote for Obama is a vote for Dhimmi Carter, who has labeled Israel an apartheid state. Thanks, but no thanks.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:02 AM