Clash of the titans
From Wolf Blitzer
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- With the transfer of power in Iraq now a done deal, the question arises: When should U.S. troops pull out? Two former presidential advisers strongly disagree on possible exit strategies, using comparisons to the Vietnam War as a reference point.
"I think the longer we stay, the greater the difficulties of transition," says Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser.
Brzezinski advocates setting a hard date now and then preparing to leave. He says the United States should pull out "sometime next year ... maybe as early as April, which will have been two years since the occupation, maybe toward the end of the year."
Brzezinski also says the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq merely endangers the overall situation, as U.S. forces and their allies in Iraq and the region become a lightening rod for terror attacks.
"What we have to recognize and face is the fact that our involvement in Iraq is becoming now a catalyst for unrest throughout the Middle East," Brzezinski says. "It's destabilizing Saudi Arabia; it's galvanizing Arab passions against the United States."
But Henry Kissinger, who served as secretary of state under Presidents Nixon and Ford, says setting such a flat exit date would be a disaster -- a position also taken by President Bush.
"Dr. Brzezinski and I have been on programs for 30 years but I've never disagreed with him as much ... I think such a complete collapse of the American position would have disastrous consequences for us on a global basis ... It is a phony argument to say we either stay indefinitely or we get out next April."
Brzezinksi shot back insisting Kissinger, while secretary of state, used to make the very same argument during an earlier U.S. military engagement abroad -- one that ended in failure.
"My good old friend said it was a phony argument. And I want to return the compliment by suggesting that his argument is very reminiscent of what he used to say during the Vietnamese war, when he was arguing that we should stay until we see light at the end of the tunnel," says Brzezinski.
"I never used the argument 'a light at the end of the tunnel.' I said indeed during the Vietnam War that we could not simply abandon people to which four American administrations of both parties had pledged support," returns Kissinger.
Foreign policy experts both in and out of the U.S. government sat the clash between these two elder statesmen over an exit strategy may actually signal the start of a broader debate among the American public at large.
