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## America's navel-gazing years are over

(Filed: 04/10/2001)

### Henry Kissinger tells Philip Delves Broughton that leaders of the world's only superpower must wake up and accept their responsibility

JUST before September 11, Henry Kissinger's latest book was released in Europe, arguing that for 10 years and three presidential elections, America had been navel-gazing its way towards disaster.

He urged America's leaders to wake up and accept their responsibility as the world's only superpower while displaying modesty and respect towards others.

Disturbed by the liberal tendency to demand American morality around the world and a conservative brand of American triumphalism, both conditioned by domestic concerns, Mr Kissinger gave his book the provocative title: Does America Need a Foreign Policy?

With America now facing a clear and immediate danger, Mr Kissinger's prescriptions seem especially prescient. "The September 11 events ended the illusion that we were no longer in a political period of human history, that history was primarily an economic and social phenomenon," he said.

Mr Kissinger, who served as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford, offers an unflinching take on dealing with America's foes - and, with almost 6,000 killed in one day, the crunching diplomatic tacklers of the Cold War are back in fashion.

"There was a self-righteous way of analysing the choices that existed in the Cold War and not understanding the complexity of conducting foreign policy in the face of imminent danger," said Mr Kissinger, taking aim at those who have called him an unscrupulous proponent of America's national interest. "From that point of view, a more sober analysis is now possible in the United States."

One of the more dramatic changes since September 11, he said, had been to relations between Europe and America. Over the last few years, he wrote in his book,

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European leaders often defined their continent in terms of its antipathy towards America. European opposition to President Bush's decisions to reject the Kyoto agreement on climate control and pursue a missile defence shield were recent examples.

September 11, he said, "demonstrated the need for common action on at least some issues, because we have to conceive that if Europeans face a comparable attack it would really require American support to mount a meaningful response. Were the principle to be established now that these events are not to be dealt with by a common response, it would really put Europe at the risk of a terrorist backlash."

The European sophisticates who have spent much of the past year painting President Bush as a Texan boor, in short, must now hush and huddle under his shield.

"From that point of view, the actions of the British government, really have been extremely helpful," said Mr Kissinger. "Tony Blair's speeches are not only expressions of a sentimental arrangement but also a well-understood British national interest."

The attacks also offer a chance for America to work closely with Russia. "If it weren't for the terrorist acts, Russia would still raise with us the possibility or necessity of co-operating against fundamentalism," he said, alluding to the presence of Islamic fundamentalists in Chechnya.

In recent years, Mr Kissinger, long a bogeyman of the Left, has become a target for legal suits filed by the alleged victims of his actions while in office. On September 11 the family of Chilean general Rene Schneider filed a suit against Mr Kissinger in Washington DC for a CIA-backed kidnapping attempt in 1970 which left the general dead.

But the fear of being detained in a foreign country, like General Pinochet, or facing legal action does not keep him awake at night, he said. The message from the White House and the Pentagon is that this war is not for the squeamish. The United States, said Vice President Dick Cheney, will need "unsavoury characters" on its payroll to dismantle the terrorist networks.

The defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has echoed Winston Churchill's promise to protect the truth with a "bodyguard of lies". Mr Kissinger said: "I believe that we treated our intelligence services badly over the last 20 years, because we exposed activities, which in their nature are difficult to fit into existing frameworks, in a manner very invidious to the intelligence services."

"I don't think much of the current craze for assassination as a tool of American foreign policy," he

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added, in the light of suggestions that taking out
certain individuals would advance the anti-terrorist
cause. "In extreme circumstances, one might not want
to be constrained by legal provisions, but as a general
proposition, I do not say that the United States is
suited to this kind of intelligence activity."

Like most of the world, Mr Kissinger was caught
unawares by the terrorists' sophistication. "All the
intelligence in Washington I had ever heard dealt with
the issue of suitcase bombs and similar kinds of
threats."

Mr Kissinger is worried that some European allies,
though not Britain, may soon feel internal pressure
and relax their efforts if the current limbo continues. If
the United States then tries to move decisively, he
said, he feared "the coalition will become a sort of a
veto on action".

Before September 11, Mr Kissinger's questioning title
Does America Need a Foreign Policy? was a rhetorical
taunt to those Americans who saw the United States
as the only show in town. Now the world is asking if
America can cobble together a new foreign policy in
time to defeat its enemies.

The answer, Mr Kissinger said, will come not in Bush's
rhetoric, but in the "concrete actions" to follow.

* 1 August 2001: US angry as Chile asks Kissinger about death

* 31 May 2001: Kissinger shuns summons

* 26 January 2001: Kissinger urges Bush to shore up Nato

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10/4/2001