November 29, 2012

Leading US strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski rejects Israeli pressure to form American national security policy by beating the drum for war on Iran. Washington would not blindly follow Tel-Aviv if Israel chooses to unilaterally strike Iran, he said.

Brzezinski said he would not advise President Barack Obama to back military action against Iran if Israel initiates a war. The observation was made at a conference hosted by the National Iranian American Council and the Arms Control Association.

In the event that Israel attacks Iran before Iran crosses the US red line, Zbigniew Brzezinski does not think there is any“implicit obligation” for the US “to follow, like a stupid mule, whatever the Israelis do.”

“If they decide to start a war, simply on the assumption that we will be automatically drawn into it, I think it is the obligation of friendship to say “you’re not going to be making national decisions for us”, declared Brzezinski.

“I think the US has the right to have its own national security policy. I think most Americans would agree with that. And therefore clarity on this issue is important and especially if we commit ourselves, explicitly and bindingly, to Israel’s security,” the strategist said.

Brzezinski explained that he advocates a formula “designed to freeze any threat into a non-threat.”

“Unless one can convincingly argue that a country of eighty five million people (Iran has population of 78 million – RT) is no higher priority than an act of collective suicide. And I don’t think that is sustained by any evidence whatsoever,”Brzezinski rationalized.­

In recent months the Obama administration has been rebutting all of Israel’s attempts to draw the US into a military operation against Iran. Washington has warned not once that in case Tel Aviv opts to do the assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities on its own, it would have to face the consequences along.

President Barack Obama stated he lays his hopes with the crippling international sanctions imposed on the Iranian Islamic Republic.

Despite Washington’s decisiveness on the Iranian question, the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu continues to call for military action against Tehran.

‘Americans elected Obama exactly because he’s peaceable’

Jamal Abdi, who is Policy Director of the National Iranian American Council, told RT that a threat from Iran is a “paper tiger” and Barack Obama is committed to diplomacy in the Iranian issue.

Despite a strong hawkish pro-Israel lobby in Washington, with Barack Obama back in the White House, Israel cannot count on unconditional military support from America against Iran, Abdi said.

He pointed out that at the presidential election “the American people really voted for the candidate who promised to actually use negotiations, for the candidate who spoke against war.”

Abdi recalled that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, a fierce advocate of military action against Iran, actually intervened in the American presidential election.

“He went on national TV channels ahead of the [American presidential] elections and basically came out against Obama. And Bibi lost that fight,” Abdi said.

Having backed the wrong horse, “Netanyahu needs to recalculate”, Abdi explained. But President Obama faces the same problem, because he needs to find a policy that would benefit everybody in preventing a war, “instead of trying to pander to this hawkish, very right-wing policy driven by some pro-Israel lobby groups.”

Still, Jamal Abdi believes an attack on Iran is a real option.

“As long as the ‘pressure only’ policy continue to dominate and undermine diplomacy, as long as sanctions continue to be a spoiler in a diplomatic process and limit the flexibility to find a deal that resolves these issues – we eventually going to end up in a war,” Abdi summed up.

http://rt.com/usa/news/brzezinski-us-israel-obligations-851/print/