The prospect of seeing Henry Kissinger's principles and methods of realpolitik applied to the mess in the Middle East makes one shudder, yet at age 83 he seems determined to recapture former glory - or ignominy. This is the statesman who was able to give South Vietnam to the communists after a "decent interval". In the present Middle East, there's unlikely to be a decent interval to provide the illusion of achieving "peace with honor".
Nov 23, 2006
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.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HK23Ak04.html
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