Brzezinski believes U.S. needs to shed paranoia

The Plain Dealer
Sep. 23, 2005

If the United States wants to be a great world leader, it has to climb out from under the bed, a former presidential adviser says.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as the national security adviser under President Carter, discussed the dangers of being a fear-driven nation Thursday night in front of about 140 people at the Cleveland Play House. His lecture was the first in a Cleveland Council on World Affairs series called "An Independent Opinion."

Our country has lost its sense of absolute security, Brzezinski said, and we're not handling it well. For the first time, we're feeling the vulnerability that other nations feel, he said.

"We're not used to this, so we have a tendency to dramatize the threat and to overstate the fear," he said, citing the war in Iraq.

The lack of global support for the war shows other countries knew our reasons were based on suspicion, not knowledge, Brzezinski said. That paranoia isolates us from the rest of the world and destroys our credibility, he said. The United States will need other countries to help with concerns such as North Ko rea and Israel, but first we need to regain their trust by cooperating, he said.

"If we want to be leaders," he said, "we have to have those who are willing to follow us."

Brzezinski was recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981 for his influence on foreign policy. He pushed the United States to challenge policies in the Soviet Union, which helped unite Soviet dissidents and led to the fall of the U.S.S.R.

"He is one of America's great thinkers of foreign affairs," said Wat Cluverius, president and CEO of the Cleveland Council on World Affairs. "Very few have given as much to the intellectual underpinnings of our foreign policy than this man."

Earlier Thursday, Brzezinski - a native of Warsaw, Poland - helped dedicate the Polish Heritage Center in Cleveland's Slavic Village.

The museum, at East 65th Street and Lansing Avenue, features more than 500 paintings, photographs and other items that chronicle the history of the local Polish community.