FRANK SHATZ: Agenda for the future
POSTED: December 29, 2008
Jean Baptiste Alphonse Kerr, the legendary editor of the French newspaper Le Figaro, is credited with saying, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”
Most of the problems in the world the Obama administration is going to face are longstanding. The tension between India and Pakistan goes back to a 1947 partition of the subcontinent that made refugees out of more than 15 million Muslims and Hindus and cost the lives of more than half a million people.
Finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which dates back to 1948 when the state of Israel was established, is another problem that calls for the attention of the new president.
“You will see a lot of the world’s leaders rushing to Obama’s doorsteps to seek U.S. engagement and involvement and a change in policy,” said retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni in an interview. “It would be very ease to be overwhelmed by all this. Obama must be very careful where he makes commitments.”
Zinni, who lives in Ford’s Colony, is the former chief of U.S. Central Command, a position now held by Gen. David Petraeus. Zinni was a special envoy for President Bush to the Middle East. He was among the first retired, high-ranking military officers who warned the Bush administration about the pitfalls of the war in Iraq. In response to my questions, he outlined some of the pitfalls that the Obama administration may face.
He figures the first order of business for Obama should be rebuilding relationships around the world and taking a hard look at where we are committed, as in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“There would be clamoring for us to be involved in places like Darfur, and other conflicts,” he said. “I think that for Obama the first and biggest test would be not just how he handles the Pakistani-India conflict, but the whole mess there. It is complex, with so many components. NATO is involved; you have to deal with the tribal issues and enemies, like al Qaeda and the Taliban. I think it is where his attention should be focused, in the beginning.”
Zinni, as the chief of Central Command, was responsible for the whole Middle East region. He kept Saddam Hussein in a “box” for years. I asked if he would accept an assignment from the Obama administration to be a special envoy to the region.
“I am certainly not lobbying for the job,” Zinni said with a laugh. “I am used to government service, and if the president asks me, I will probably say yes.”
In his view, there is a need for new ideas and a new approach to solving the Israeli-Palestinian, and the India-Pakistan-Afghanistan problem.
“I don’t think that assigning an envoy is the right way to go. Instead, a larger group should be created that would be permanently based over there in the region to tackle economic, political and security issues all at the same time. The trouble with the envoys is that they come and go; they negotiate an agreement, then some action by extremists blows it apart.”
He added, “It is easy to get an agreement in principle. The hard part is to implement it. It has to be done on a full-time basis with a very professional group of people. You have to invest your time and resources in the right areas, in places that are the most important in regard to our national security interest.”
The fact that his former comrade-in-arms, Gen. James Jones, was selected as national security adviser gives him added confidence in the Obama administration.
“He is a great guy,” Zinni said of Jones. “I had known him for 30 years. He is very intelligent, knows Washington well. He has the right temperament for the job. I think that he would be a national security adviser much like Gen. Brent Scowcroft was to President George H. W. Bush. He is one who will be able to gain consensus and run a very efficient organization.”
Zinni believes that the first order of business should be “to define this problem, how bad it is, how serious it is going to be, how long it will take to get us out of this.”
In spite of all the discouraging signs, he remains an optimist. “I think we can manage to get out of this. But it’s going to take, my guess is, at least two years. The government must take some serious actions. We have to focus on things that are most damaging to our society, like unemployment and people losing their homes. We can’t just worry about the business, we have to worry also about the welfare of people on Main Street.”
He added: “It won’t be easy. But I have confidence in the people whom Obama selected for his administration.”
Frank Shatz lives in Williamsburg, Va. and Lake Placid. His column was reprinted with permission from The Virginia Gazette.
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