Word: brzezinski
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...Brzezinski who unveiled in 1977 the concept of Iran and Saudi Arabia becoming "the regional influentials" on whom the U.S. could rely in the Persian Gulf. Now that Washington's relations with Tehran are severed and those with Riyadh are strained, Brzezinski is fascinated by the potential of radical, traditionally pro-Soviet Iraq as "the new regional influential...
...Brzezinski's labels too often seem facile, even interchangeable, and his theories too flexible, too clever by half. In 1977-78 he argued that the U.S. must learn to live with revolutionary change in Third World countries. Then, in 1979, without admitting a major shift in policy, he pushed vigorously, though unsuccessfully, for a policy of backing Nicaraguan Dictator Anastasio Somoza to the bitter...
...Brzezinski has also shown poor judgment in indulging his visceral anti-Russian sentiments and his combative, provocative personality in public. During a trip to China in 1978, he challenged an aide to a race up the Great Wall, saying, "Last one to the top has to fight the Cubans in Ethiopia." It would have been a harmless joke, except that the Soviets as well as some State Department officials were already quivering with anxiety about the anti-Soviet overtones of the trip, and the reporters gathered round were sure to overhear the quip and make news out of it. They...
...private, Brzezinski is far less pugnacious. Says former Aide Samuel Hoskinson, "He's a gentleman and a scholar in the true sense of the words." Seweryn Bialer, a fellow Polish American who succeeded Brzezinski as director of the Research Institute on International Change at Columbia University, calls him "extraordinarily decent and honest." Bialer says he has profound disagreements with the Carter Administration, particularly over its difficulty in promulgating clear and steady policies, but he does not blame Brzezinski alone: "It's the President's fault. My disappointment with Brzezinski is that he cannot change the President...
...Brzezinski believes that he is under attack because of the politically supercharged atmosphere and because he is vulnerable to both the left and the right: the left resents him, in his view, for being correct about the dangers of Soviet expansionism, while the right criticizes him for supporting the embattled SALT II treaty and the human rights policy. Brzezinski argues that despite the setbacks of the past few years, the Administration has laid the ground for effectively countering the Soviets, for repairing frayed ties with Western Europe and Japan, for consolidating the new Sino-American relationship (for which Brzezinski takes...