Iraq: Kissinger's 'decent
interval', take two By Marc
Erikson
At age 83, Henry Kissinger aims to
recapture former glory - or ignominy as it were.
Thirty-three years after being honored with the
Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace to Vietnam
(he didn't), he is insinuating himself into the
row over US Iraq policy. The prospect of seeing
Kissingerian principles and methods of realpolitik
applied to the mess in the Middle East makes one
shudder.
Kissinger role models Klemens
Wenzel von Metternich and Otto von Bismarck hardly
made Central Europe a safer or better place
in the
19th century. An inspection of Vietnam-era secret
documents now declassified after the lapse of the
mandatory 30-year period does not make for
encouraging reading. On June 20, 1972,
then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger
told Chinese premier Zhou Enlai in the course of a
four-hour meeting at the Great Hall of the People
in Beijing:
So we should find a way to end the
war, to stop it from being an international
situation, and then permit a situation to
develop in which the future of Indochina can be
returned to the Indochinese people. And I can
assure you that this is the only object we have
in Indochina, and I do not believe this can be
so different from yours. We want nothing for
ourselves there. And while we cannot bring a
communist government to power, if as a result of
historical evolution it should happen over a
period of time, if we can live with a communist
government in China, we ought to be able to
accept it in Indochina. (Emphasis added) [1]
A month and a half later (August 3,
1972), Kissinger explained to president Richard
Nixon:
We will agree to a historical
process or a political process in which the real
forces in Vietnam will assert themselves,
whatever these forces are. We've got to find
some formula that holds the thing together a
year or two, after which - after a year, Mr
President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we
settle it, say, this October, by January '74, no
one will give a damn. [2]
The
"strategy" - if you want to call it that -
summarized here by Kissinger had been conceived at
least a year earlier. As noted in the Indochina
section of the briefing book for Kissinger's July
1971 China trip:
On behalf of President Nixon I want
to assure the prime minister [Zhou] solemnly
that the United States is prepared to make a
settlement that will truly leave the political
evolution of South Vietnam to the Vietnamese
alone. We are ready to withdraw all of our
forces by a fixed date and let objective
realities shape the political future
...
We want a decent interval. You have our
assurance. [Marginal notation in Kissinger's
hand.] If the Vietnamese people themselves
decide to change the present government, we
shall accept it. But we will not make that
decision for them. [3]
One wonders
what exactly the United States' South Vietnamese
allies would have thought or done had they known
the substance of Kissinger's "diplomacy" - if you
want to call it that - on behalf of their future.
Well, that was then. What about Iraq and
the wider Middle East region now? Turn Iraq over
to the communists? Unhappily for Kissinger-style
strategy, there are no communists in the vicinity
to turn it over to; and the Chinese communists are
unlikely takers.
But no need to despair.
Referencing alleged recommendations of the Iraq
Study Group co-led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton
to be issued in the near future, Kissinger writes
in a November 17 op-ed in the Khaleej Times ("What
do we do with Iran?"):
The argument has become widespread
that Iran (and Syria) should be drawn into a
negotiating process, hopefully to bring about a
change of their attitudes as happened, for
example, in the opening to China a generation
ago. This, it is said, will facilitate a retreat
by the US to more strategically sustainable
positions.
But after a swipe at the
Bush administration's refusal to negotiate with
members of the "axis of evil" ("A diplomacy that
excludes adversaries is clearly a contradiction in
terms"), Kissinger cautions:
The argument on behalf of
negotiating too often focuses on the opening of
talks rather than their substance. The fact of
talks is assumed to represent a psychological
breakthrough. The relief supplied by a change of
atmosphere is bound to be temporary, however.
Diplomacy - especially with an adversary - can
succeed only if it brings about a balance of
interests. Failing that, it runs the risks of
turning into an alibi for procrastination or a
palliative to ease the process of defeat
without, however, eliminating the consequences
of defeat.
That, no doubt, is a point
well taken. Following the logic of his own
argument and method, Kissinger thus looks for a
worthy adversary with whom to balance interests
and make a deal, and finds two - Iran and Russia.
The present problem with Iran, he says, is
that it views itself as a crusade, not a nation,
and you can't make deals or negotiate with a
crusade. Hence "Iran needs to be encouraged to act
as a nation, not a cause" to become a negotiating
partner.
Might that include toleration of
Iran's becoming a nuclear power? That's where
Russia comes in in the Kissinger scheme of things.
"Probably no country ... fears an Iranian nuclear
capability more than Russia, whose large Islamic
population lies just north of the borders of
Iran," writes Kissinger.
He believes that
the Europeans are unlikely to put tough sanctions
on Iran and does not believe that the US will
become more deeply involved, let alone resort to
military action, in the last two years of the Bush
administration. Which leaves Russia. The
difference between Russia and the Europeans is
that "if matters reach a final crunch, Russia is
more likely to take a stand, especially when an
Iranian nuclear capability begins to look
inevitable, even more when it emerges as
imminent".
Bottom line? Let Russia cope
with Iran as it becomes a nation state and nuclear
power. Unspoken conclusion: an Iran contained and
made to behave by Russia can play the role of
regional arbiter, notably if the moderate Sunni
states of the region - Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
Jordan, the Gulf states - act as counterbalances.
And presto, the US can withdraw.
It's of
course precisely such balance-of-power arithmetic
that - when something didn't quite compute - led
straight from Bismarck's complex alliances to
World War I.
In the 1970s, with an
apparently stable Soviet Union as the principal
adversary and the opportunity of making a
balance-of-power deal with Mao Zedong's China,
after a "decent interval" Kissinger was able to
write off South Vietnam as a lost cause. In the
present Middle East, there's unlikely to be a
decent interval to provide for the illusion of
achieving "peace with honor".
Note [1] Quoted from the
transcript (pp 27-37) of Henry Kissinger's meeting
with Zhou Enlai, June 20, 1972. Source: The
National Security Archive; George Washington
University; "Memorandum of Conversation with Zhou
Enlai, June 20, 1972". Date and time: Tuesday,
June 20, 1972, 2:05-6:05pm. Place: Great Hall of
the People, Peking. [2] Source: Transcript of
White House tapes. [3] Excerpt from the
Indochina section of the briefing book for
Kissinger's July 1971 trip; National Security
Archive.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about
sales, syndication and republishing
.)
