by Superstar diplomats and policy makers Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski appeared together on CNN’s “Fareed
Zakaria GPS” news talk show to discuss the issue of Syria and the Russian proposal.
The two iconoclastic analysts expressed agreement that the prime motivator of Russian President Vladimir Putin in his position on Syria is to maintain stability in the region.
The two maintained that the deal on Syria negotiated with the US and Russia was designed to give Putin the ability to fight the rising threat of fundamentalist Islamic power in the area as well as within his own borders; but the US-Russia deal on Syria also allowed the US to exit itself from a tough predicament.
“Putin, in my opinion,” Kissinger said, “considers radical Islam his biggest security threat. He saw an opportunity to perhaps to get into step with us, solving a common problem.”
Kissinger is a 90 year-old former secretary of state who worked in the administration of Presidents Nixon and Ford. Brzezinski is 85 and filled the post of national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter. Both had the reputation of being, and continue to be, polarizing personalities in diplomacy and international affairs.
Kissinger and Brzezinski also agreed that before this deal was struck American policy was going in the wrong direction.
Kissinger explained that the policy of the Obama administration was too focused on the desire to eject President Bashar Assad of Syria out of power, rather than taking a deeper look at the “historic conflict between Shiites and Sunnis.”
Brzezinski was even more critical. In his opinion an attack on Syria would have been “pointless.”
“Our actions were misconceived, badly calculated. This gets us off the hook.”