Zbig and Obama

I keep forgetting to link to something about Zbigniew Brzezinski's endorsement of Barack Obama. I see this as a significant development. Brzezinski is one of the leading members of what you might call the foreign policy counterestablishment that's slowly emerged over the past four years. This all dates back, in my experience, to his electrifying October 2003 speech at the New American Strategies conference that was organized in DC by progressives looking to formulate a meaningful challenge to neoconservatism.

Brzezinski fears (and I think it's a reasonable fear) that Hillary Clinton and her circle is dominated by the kind of people and thinking who played the dominant role in shaping Democratic policies between 9/11 and Kerry's defeat in 2004 -- Ari Berman's "strategic class" in short.

Comments

I was sorta shocked to see Zbig say that America's bleeding of the Soviet Union was worth it in Afghanistan, despite the "blowback."

I view it the same way as I view China and the Vietnam war, a waste. The USSR would have collapsed anyway and China would have gone capitalist anyway.

Posted by Peter K. | August 28, 2007 1:55 PM

Look, I'm glad that Brzezinski is endorsing Obama, and it is true that he has broken in some important ways with some of the most conventional thinking on US Middle East policy. But calling him part of the "foreign policy counterestablishment" and suggesting he is not part of the "strategic class" is really gilding the lily here. Brzezinski is a member in good standing of the FPE, the VSP, the strategic class etc. It's not like those guys all think exactly the same way. Currently on the faculty the Hopkins school and a CSIS scholar, member of the CFR, as well as being a former NSA - I would say these constitute establishment credentials.

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 28, 2007 1:57 PM

From a political angle:

I'm guessing Obama is sitting on some other endorsements. This one seemed very conveniently timed, or inconveniently timed (or both).

That is, why roll this out on a Friday afternoon, i.e. standard news dump time? My guess is: to get coverage while Hillary's "what if there's a terrorist strike?" semi-gaffe got play. A saw a couple papers who covered the story by recounting the comment from Clinton, covering the candidate reactions (Dodd: its tasteless Edwards: it shouldn't be about politics, etc), and then ending with "Obama declined comment, but he did get an endorsement from Z Brez., who said 'Obama is really smart, Hillary is conventional and doesn't really have good judgment'"

Its a way of piling on and boosting your own credentials without saying a word.

With that in mind, it seems awful early to roll out your biggest guns.

I'd imagine we'll see more of these well-timed endorsements in the future.

Posted by mopper | August 28, 2007 2:18 PM

would say these constitute establishment credentials.

Doesn't "counter establishment" usually mean "opposing faction of the establishment"? In any case, if we're in a least bad situation, I still need to know who is, in fact, least bad.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 28, 2007 2:22 PM

Dan Kervick has it in spades. Brzezinski's endorsement of Obama is noteworthy because it suggests that he is NOT the inexperienced neophyte that Clinton and all the other candidates have been attacking these past few weeks. It suggests, rather, that his ideas are grounded in the experience and scholarship of a previous generation. I'm not sure that this fits in with his narrative of being an instrument of change, but it should damp down the notion that Obama is the purveyor of dangerous, newfangled ideas. Probably a good thing in the end.

Posted by Unreal Veal | August 28, 2007 2:23 PM

Does Z-Big think it would be a great idea for Obama to prompt a Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and then hire an immense army of cut-throat Islamic fundamentalist terrorist drug-running warlord thugs to fight the Russians with?

Everyone used to think that was a really cool idea.

Posted by El Cid | August 28, 2007 2:51 PM

Re Brzezinski

It is not surprising that Mr. Yglesias finds this development to be positive as Prof. Brzezinski is from the Walt/Mearsheimer school of Israel bashers.

Posted by SLC | August 28, 2007 3:01 PM

Brzezinski is one of the leading members of what you might call the foreign policy counterestablishment that's slowly emerged over the past four years
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Why does anyone pay attention to Brzezinski? Didn't his role in the foreign policy morass that was the Carter presidency sink him? The Camp David accord between Egypt and Israel was about the only thing that went right on his watch

Posted by Campesino | August 28, 2007 3:05 PM

I think Brzezinski definitely counts as counter-establishment; read "The Dilemma of the Last Sovereign". He was calling the FPE "Bush-lite" before Obama made it cool.

Posted by Minipundit | August 28, 2007 3:06 PM

I was sorta shocked to see Zbig say that America's bleeding of the Soviet Union was worth it in Afghanistan, despite the "blowback."

I view it the same way as I view China and the Vietnam war, a waste. The USSR would have collapsed anyway and China would have gone capitalist anyway.

Posted by Peter K. | August 28, 2007 1:55 PM
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Ah, the old "inevitability" illusion. It's usually espoused by those who didn't live through those "inevitable" events.

Posted by Campesino | August 28, 2007 3:10 PM

If Brzezinski had endorsed Clinton, he would be characterized as an establishmentarian and the endorsement would be depicted as further proof that Clinton is beholden to traditional policy elites. Obama is an admirable candidate and could be a good president...but there's at least as much spin, froth, and bubbles surrounding his candidacy as you'll find around the others.

Posted by Rich | August 28, 2007 3:28 PM

he is NOT the inexperienced neophyte that Clinton and all the other candidates have been attacking these past few weeks. - Unreal Veal

It depends on how you define "inexperienced". Obama, being a professional "community organizer" has much more of the relevent managerial experience than many Presidents have had. G.W. Bush may have been our first "CEO President" but, if you'll pardon my adoption of the grand incompetency dodge here, part of G.W. Bush's problem is that he's not a good manager and only was a CEO based on family connections.

Whatever else he is, Obama would seem to actually have the most relevent job experience and qualifications of all the candidates ... we may in fact select a President based on many criteria, but really the President, in a democratic republic such as ours, is supposed to be one thing and one thing only -- the person we the people hire to manage the ship of state. And by that very basic criterion, Obama seems to be the best man for the job.

OTOH, again contra the spin, in terms of being able to convince people to see things his way, e.g. taking advantage of the bully pulpit and pushing legislation through Congress, Edwards, a trial attorney with an excellent track record of getting, e.g., juries on his side, has the most relevent experience even if the spin is that Obama is the smooth, "eloquent" speaker of the bunch.

*

Re: the subject of the post, though ... Zbig's endorsement opens up Obama to the accusation that "opponents of neo-conservative 'idealism' are simply tired old-fashioned realists" ... this accusation is, of course, flawed, but Obama better have a plan to deal with it. For too long too many Dems. have been blindsided by fairly obvious and predictable GOP rhetorical assaults.

Even if people see through these assaults, they still might wonder how can one be a tough strategist abroad if one can't even manage to anticipate the machinations of political opponants at home -- in 2004 people in some cases very consciously decided they'd rather elect a bully than someone who was "tricked" by the bullies into thinking his Iraq war vote was for what those bullies said it was for. You'd think we'd have learned our lesson, but we can't count on that -- people might still prefer a bully to deal with the bullies abroad than someone who is tricked by a bully.

The question is not whether Obama has the experience to be President but the political experience to deal with the other side.

Posted by DAS | August 28, 2007 3:30 PM

More likely as proof that Z wanted to rejoin the big group.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 28, 2007 3:31 PM

How soon we forget that the Soviet Union and the US had their nuclear arsenal on hair-triggers for 40 years. An accidental start of World War III seemed more "inevitable" than than the collapse of the Soviet Union. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_III#Historical_close_calls

Anything we could do to hasten the end of the Soviet Union reduced the risk of World War III. So yes, Zbig's right, arming Islamists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets was worth the blowback.

Posted by beowulf | August 28, 2007 3:37 PM

So yes, Zbig's right, arming Islamists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets was worth the blowback.

Sure, I understand, that's your judgment, but, no, it wasn't, and it wasn't worth the warlord chaos hell it spawned in Afghanistan which rages to this day, and it wasn't worth losing two World Trade Centers, a side of the Pentagon, 4 passenger airplanes, and a significant chunk of U.S. democracy.

So, no, you can crow all you want about how it saved us from almost certain death, but it didn't, and ended up in terror attacks on the domestic USA. If the USSR proved anything, it was that it was a stolidly rational opponent who had zero interest in launching a nuclear war with the U.S. I wish those missiles were actually gone, but, no, they're still there in Russia, waiting for the next rabid ultranationalist to ascend to power.

Thank god, though, as time passes, and the crazy Nu Right / Reaganites die, fewer and fewer people respect this sort of crazy calculation, and I doubt in 10 years there will be too many admirers of the stupid fundamentalist terror war in Afghanistan outside its own propagandists and 'Cold War' hawks.

Posted by El Cid | August 28, 2007 3:50 PM

I've seen a couple rather lame videos where Ron Paul supporters go to Barack's appearances and point out that his wife is apparently with the Chicago branch of the CFR. I'd prefer they asked a better question (like this: youtube.com/watch?v=EiullH5jU1A), but since ZBig is also in the CFR, can we assume that BO is the CFR candidate? Just so we know where he stands, can we get a yea or nay from MattY on the CFR? Is he in their junior league?

BTW, it looks like the only two Dem candidates who aren't in that august group might be Gravel and Kucinich, and that's pretty sad.

Posted by TLB | August 28, 2007 3:54 PM

I agree with beowolf. Still seems worth it to me.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 28, 2007 3:54 PM

DAS:

I agree with you about Obama's relevant experience, and I agree that his way to attack his foreign policy inexperience is to emphasize the importance of judgement in comparison to experience. I was simply saying that, in receiving Zbig's endorsement, he can claim that people with experience share his judgement, which might impress some people. Isn't that the point of endorsements?

beowulf:

I don't know if fuelling the Soviet war in Afghanistan was worth the blowback or not, but I like what you say about the primacy of weakening the USSR. In any case, it's hard to fault Zbig for not basing foreign policy decision in the late 1970s on the events of 2001. Right or wrong, it's just too much to ask of policymakers.

Posted by Unreal Veal | August 28, 2007 3:56 PM

" and it wasn't worth losing two World Trade Centers, a side of the Pentagon, 4 passenger airplanes, and a significant chunk of U.S. democracy."

Isn't the common assumption that the plane brought down in Pennsylvania by some of its passengers was headed to the United States Capitol building? People would have gone even more nuts.

Posted by Peter K. | August 28, 2007 3:59 PM

Still, whatever may be ZBig's countervailing influence to the "strategic class" , who is more deeply imbedded with that class as point man for the Israel Lobby than Dennis Ross, who was just now reported to be Obama's key adviser on Middle East Policy.
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/20070824rossobama.html

Posted by Justin X | August 28, 2007 4:37 PM

Anything we could do to hasten the end of the Soviet Union reduced the risk of World War III. So yes, Zbig's right, arming Islamists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets was worth the blowback.

Posted by beowulf | August 28, 2007 3:37 PM

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Amen. Nothing "inevitable" about it.

Posted by Campesino | August 28, 2007 4:38 PM

Still, whatever may be ZBig's countervailing influence to the "strategic class" , who is more deeply imbedded with that class as point man for the Israel Lobby than Dennis Ross, who was just now reported to be Obama's key adviser on Middle East Policy?

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/20070824rossobama.html

Posted by Justin X | August 28, 2007 4:42 PM

So, no, you can crow all you want about how it saved us from almost certain death, but it didn't, and ended up in terror attacks on the domestic USA. If the USSR proved anything, it was that it was a stolidly rational opponent who had zero interest in launching a nuclear war with the U.S. I wish those missiles were actually gone, but, no, they're still there in Russia, waiting for the next rabid ultranationalist to ascend to power.

Thank god, though, as time passes, and the crazy Nu Right / Reaganites die, fewer and fewer people respect this sort of crazy calculation, and I doubt in 10 years there will be too many admirers of the stupid fundamentalist terror war in Afghanistan outside its own propagandists and 'Cold War' hawks.

Posted by El Cid | August 28, 2007 3:50 PM

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Oh, wow. At its breakup, the USSR had a population of 293 million, an army of 2 million, an air force with 6300 combat aircraft, and a navy with 300 submarines and 960 surface ships.

Last year Russia had a population of 141 million (which is declining - they're in demographic collapse), an army of 395,000, an air force with 2400 combat aircraft, and a navy with 58 submarines and 180 surface ships. With this they struggle to keep control of Chechnia and can't keep their fleet at sea regularly.

On top of that Russia has lost its buffer of Warsaw Pact satellites that are now generally hostile and busy joining the EU and NATO.

I hear what you say about the nukes, but the numbers of deployed warheads is way down, about the best anyone could hope for.

For all of Putin's bluster, Russia is really quite weak. The demographic problems are dooming his ambitions. About his only power leverage is with his oil and gas sales. I'd say Europeans are much more concerned about that than Russian nukes.

I'd say that result is worth absorbing some terrorist attacks.
************************************************* Sure, I understand, that's your judgment, but, no, it wasn't, and it wasn't worth the warlord chaos hell it spawned in Afghanistan which rages to this day
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Oh, and if you would read some history you'd know that Arghanistan has been pretty much a warlord chaos hell with brief interruptions for the last 2000 years or so.

Posted by Reid Farmer | August 28, 2007 7:07 PM

Re Justin X

Dennis Ross a point man for the Israel Lobby? Mr. X has to be kidding. Dennis Ross, along with his pal Martyn Indyk is the point man for the appeasers who think that Israel lying down and letting the Palestinian terrorists walk all over them would lead to peace.

Posted by SLC | August 28, 2007 7:08 PM

To SLC, if you're not willing to personally kill an entire Palestinian family and hang their corpses from an Israeli settlement's wall, you're not pro-Israel.

Posted by soullite | August 28, 2007 7:26 PM

Oh, and if you would read some history you'd know that Arghanistan has been pretty much a warlord chaos hell with brief interruptions for the last 2000 years or so.

Well, from that wise & insightful perspective, for the last 2,000 years, so was Europe.

Posted by El Cid | August 28, 2007 8:09 PM

Oh, wow. At its breakup, the USSR had a population of 293 million, an army of 2 million, an air force with 6300 combat aircraft, and a navy with 300 submarines and 960 surface ships.

Last year Russia had a population of 141 million (which is declining - they're in demographic collapse), an army of 395,000, an air force with 2400 combat aircraft, and a navy with 58 submarines and 180 surface ships. With this they struggle to keep control of Chechnia and can't keep their fleet at sea regularly...

I hear what you say about the nukes, but the numbers of deployed warheads is way down, about the best anyone could hope for.

And out of all of those, were there people in the USA who feared attack from the Soviet army or navies?

Were they afraid of attacks from massive amounts of Yakovlev trainers?

No, what they were afraid of was an ICBM and nuclear missile and nuclear bomber exchange.

I understand that it's the liberal hawk and raving right wing conviction that the only thing that saved the world from Soviet tyranny was Zbig & Reagan hiring bin Laden style terrorist armies to attack the secular government of Afghanistan, but no. No.

Posted by El Cid | August 28, 2007 8:13 PM

"Why does anyone pay attention to Brzezinski? Didn't his role in the foreign policy morass that was the Carter presidency sink him? The Camp David accord between Egypt and Israel was about the only thing that went right on his watch"

He also lost many battles with Carter's Secretary of State, so some of Carter's mistakes were more the SoS's babies than Z's. It does bring up the question of academics-turned-policy advisers knowing how to make policy, but not knowing how to fight political battles to get them implemented. With that said, with endorsements, it's a question of the person's judgement on what is a good policy than knowing how to play the in-the-Beltway Kissinger-Metternich game.

Posted by Reality Man | August 28, 2007 8:22 PM

soullite: As much as I can't stand your tweedle dee/tweedle dum analysis of the presidential election, and that comment was a bit over the top, the essential point is very accurate. The idea that Ross is some kind of radical Palestinian supporter...Jeebus Christmas.

"Why does anyone pay attention to Brzezinski?"

As someone who sorta-started paying attention to politics in 1980 (Carter (Kennedy)/Reagan), this rings true. Nonetheless, most I've what I've heard him say for quite a while now is very sound.

We could do worse. that's a funny.

Posted by Andruw | August 28, 2007 8:47 PM

Re soullite

Apparently, Mr. soullite and Mr. ndn are of the view that the Government of Israel should just sit back and take it, homicide bombings, kassems, mortars, etc. I wonder how long the US would sit back and take it if homicide bombers were infiltrating across the border with Mexico, missiles and mortars were fired across the border, etc. After all, it could be fairly argued that the US is illegally occupying Mexican territory which it obtained as the result of a war of aggression (i.e. Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, California, and part of Nevada) and that the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Tucson, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, etc are illegal settlements. After all, what's sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander.

Posted by SLC | August 28, 2007 9:10 PM

>I'm guessing Obama is sitting on some other endorsements. This one seemed very conveniently timed, or inconveniently timed (or both).

I suspect you are right. The conventional wisdom is that people start paying attention to politics after labor day. This seems to be one bit of conventional wisdom that the Obama campaign has accepted.

Posted by Carrington Ward | August 28, 2007 9:12 PM

After all, what's sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander.

We pay for our own sauce.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 28, 2007 9:14 PM

After all, it could be fairly argued that the US is illegally occupying Mexican territory...After all, what's sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander.

True! And fully half the United States population are the descendents of the original Mexicans who lived in those territories, confined to squalid settlements and refugee camps, stripped of the right to travel freely around the country, unable to vote, deprived of resources and economic rights...oh, wait, is that not true?

Posted by mq | August 29, 2007 12:08 AM

Re mq

1. For the information of Mr. mq, the State of Israel took in the Jewish refugees from the Arab countries, such as Iraq from which they were expelled after 1948. Those folks are not living in refugee camps but have been integrated into Israeli society. However, the Arab world has refused to do the same for the Palestinian refugees who were displaced as a result of the 1948 war but has kept them confined to refugee camps for the purpose of using those camps as a club with which to beat the State of Israel. Further, there are refugee camps in the West Bank and the Gaza strip, inhabitants of which have not even been integrated into Palestinian society therein.

We might point to the Sudetenland Germans who were displaced after WW2 who are not living in refugee camps but have been integrated into German society. We might point to the Moslems in India and the Hindus in Pakistan/Bangladesh who were displaced after the Indian subcontinent achieved independence, who are not living in refugee camps but have been integrated into their respective societies. Thus blaming the State of Israel for the situation relative to the Palestinians in refugee camps is nothing but a propaganda ploy by the Arab world to excuse their inaction on the problem.

Posted by SLC | August 29, 2007 7:11 AM

We might point to the Moslems in India and the Hindus in Pakistan/Bangladesh who were displaced after the Indian subcontinent achieved independence, who are not living in refugee camps but have been integrated into their respective societies. - SLC

This is not exactly true. The Bihari Moslems who fled India were never fully integrated into Bengladeshi society, but were associated with the Pakistani leadership (back when Bengladesh was "East Pakistan"). When Bengladesh achieved its independence, the Biharis with the means to do so left Bengladesh and were resettled (and integrated into) what was until then West Pakistan. However, the poor Biharis who did not have the resources to leave, not being Bengladeshis have been relegated to squatter camps. Much of the time when you hear about tons of people dying in Bengladesh, what you are really hearing about is Bihari squatters dying.

I am not sure how this would relate to the Palestinian situation. Although it is interesting to note that you don't hear about the Bihari refugees ... they are never called that, are they? Even though that is, effectively, what they are.

Posted by DAS | August 29, 2007 11:36 AM

And out of all of those, were there people in the USA who feared attack from the Soviet army or navies?

Were they afraid of attacks from massive amounts of Yakovlev trainers?

No, what they were afraid of was an ICBM and nuclear missile and nuclear bomber exchange.

I understand that it's the liberal hawk and raving right wing conviction that the only thing that saved the world from Soviet tyranny was Zbig & Reagan hiring bin Laden style terrorist armies to attack the secular government of Afghanistan, but no. No.

Posted by El Cid | August 28, 2007 8:13 PM
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Well back then sensible people (including those of us in the Army) were afraid of the full array of Soviet military threats. They were pointed right at us.

It makes me wonder, Cid, were you ever around and thinking during the Cold War? Or is your knowledge of it like MY's - you read about it in a book?

Posted by Reid Farmer | August 29, 2007 12:08 PM

Well, from that wise & insightful perspective, for the last 2,000 years, so was Europe.

Posted by El Cid | August 28, 2007 8:09 PM
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Very bright. Europe has civilized and developed and our expectations are correspondingly higher. Afghanistan never has pulled out of that and anyone expecting it to be like Switzerland is going to be disappointed. For the foreseeable future it is going to be the loosely-knit collection of quarrelsome ethnic factions it always has been

Posted by Reid Farmer | August 29, 2007 12:14 PM