Zbigniew Brzezinski: "...the White House could provoke attacks on its own soil to justify an intervention in Iran plausible."

The White House Could Provoke Attacks in the United States
Reporterre

Thursday 08 February 2007

In testimony before the American Senate, Carter's former National Security Advisor considered the hypothesis that the White House could provoke attacks on its own soil to justify an intervention in Iran plausible.
Zbigniew Brzezinski is one of the people most widely respected in geopolitical matters in the United States. Advisor to Jimmy Carter when the latter was President of the United States between 1977 and 1981, he was considered a "hawk among the doves." Since then, he has stayed very attentive to international questions, within the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Notably, he published a widely regarded essay, Le Grand Echiquier [The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives] (Hachette, 1997).

Hostile to the war in Iraq, he spoke February 1st before an American Senate committee on the international situation and more specifically on the power struggle with Iran. One passage in his testimony has caught the attention of several observers: the one in which he considers that the White House could provoke a terrorist act in the United States itself to win public opinion over to the idea of an intervention against Iran. Here is the passage:

"A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan."

The allusion to a terrorist act in the United States, responsibility for which "would be attributed to the Iranians" is remarkable: an American official at the highest level concedes the idea that the Bush Administration could not only use terrorism to serve its own ends, but even provoke attacks on its own soil in order to justify its aggressive intrigues.

Brzezinski's statements are all the more remarkable in that he himself in his book, The Grand Chessboard, deemed that control of central Asia and its oil resources were necessary for the maintenance of American domination.

But he emphasized that it was difficult to obtain a consensus from the American public to support United States' interventions beyond its borders "in the absence of a sudden threat or a feeling by the population that its well-being was at stake." On that occasion, he recalled the example of Pearl Harbor which tipped American opinion in favor of an intervention in the Second World War.

Consequently, it is not "conspiracy theorists" only who are blowing the whistle on such a corruption of American democracy, even if one must not extrapolate too much from the statements of Jimmy Carter's former advisor. But for several years, many people have, in fact, wondered about the exact unfolding of the events of September 11, 2001 and wonder whether the American administration has not done everything to prevent them [from knowing.] Zbigniew Brzezinski's position provides legitimacy to these questions and undoubtedly constitutes a message addressed to George Bush and his entourage.

Here is the original text:

SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITEE TESTIMONY - ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI
February 1, 2007
Mr. Chairman: Your hearings come at a critical juncture in the U.S. war of choice in Iraq, and I commend you and Senator Lugar for scheduling them.

It is time for the White House to come to terms with two central realities:

1. The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity. Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America's global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America's moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.

2. Only a political strategy that is historically relevant rather than reminiscent of colonial tutelage can provide the needed framework for a tolerable resolution of both the war in Iraq and the intensifying regional tensions.

If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMDs in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the "decisive ideological struggle" of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. In that context, Islamist extremism and al Qaeda are presented as the equivalents of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia, and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl Harbor attack which precipitated America's involvement in World War II.
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Source: The Washington Note.

You may also find additional analysis of this testimony at DeDefensa.org.