Richard C. Holbrooke, left, served as keynote speaker at the UJA Major Gifts Dinner, held Sept. 25 in Livingston; introducing him is David Lowenstein.
Photo by Johanna Ginsberg
October 2, 2008
Richard C. Holbrooke told a near-capacity crowd in Livingston on Sept. 25 that the upcoming presidential election is perhaps the most important election since at least 1968.
Calling it a “watershed moment” in the country’s history, he said that whoever is elected will determine our path “for the next 40 years.”
The former ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration outlined four major foreign policy challenges facing the next president, acknowledging that they are undergirded by the current financial crisis. They include the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, Russia, and Iran.
Holbrooke, vice chair of Perseus, a private equity fund management company, also writes a weekly column for The Washington Post. He served as President Bill Clinton’s special envoy to Bosnia and Kosovo.
He gave the talk at the Major Gifts Dinner, the annual UJA campaign kickoff for United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ. Some 315 people attended, at the Crystal Plaza.
Although Holbrooke has spent time in and around Wall Street when not working in government — he served as vice chair of Credit Suisse First Boston and managing director at Lehman Brothers — he declined to address the financial crisis.
“I’m not a financial expert. I can’t tell you anything you don’t all know. And there are a lot of people in the room who know just as much and more about this than I do,” he said.
“This is the most important election since at least 1968,” he said.
“Whoever wins, he will confront, on the first day in the presidency, the most daunting international agenda any president has faced since at least World War II — and now, because of events of recent weeks, the most serious economic crisis since 1932. The fact that they are coming at the same time seems to me to make it axiomatic that the next president inherits the toughest opening day position in American history.”
Calling it even tougher than the presidency Harry Truman inherited, he said, “No president has ever inherited two wars. Iraq is going better than almost anyone anticipated two months ago, but it is still an endless war.”
He pointed out the candidates’ “defining” policy differences — one embraces troop withdrawal, one advocates staying the course. Both candidates understand the difficulties of their positions, said Holbrooke.
“As Barack Obama said, extricating from Iraq will be very difficult; and McCain understands the costs associated with staying,” he said. “Whichever position is represented by victory will be very tough.”
Holbrooke predicted that Afghanistan will be America’s longest war. “Next month is eight years. The only longer war is Vietnam. And I guarantee that before it is over this will pass Vietnam as the longest war.”
He criticized the Bush administration’s presentation of the war to the American people, its handling of the drug problem in Afghanistan, the corruption of the Afghan government, the lack of any strategy for success there, and a particular strategic miscalculation from the outset.
Underscoring the importance of the war, he nonetheless scolded the administration: “This administration never told the truth about Afghanistan. They should have said this is going to be a really long war, but we have to stay there because this is where 9/11 came from.”
He also criticized the government’s decision to invade Iraq before capturing Osama Bin Laden, which, he said “will go down as a great historic miscalculation.”
He turned to Russia and its recent incursion into South Ossetia and attacks on the rest of Georgia. Russia’s actions “fundamentally changed the strategic landscape,” he said. “The next administration will have to restructure the relationship with Russia. We cannot go back to the Cold War, but we cannot pretend they did not do this.”
He called a recent speech given by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice “the most brutal, hostile speech about Russia that anyone has given in a long time — probably since Reagan.”
Confronting Iran
Holbrooke turned his attention to Iran, focusing on two issues there: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitism and the country’s nuclear weapons capability.
“Ahmadinejad is the most famous, notorious anti-Semite since 1945. And he can make the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan hellishly more difficult,” said Holbrooke.
He pointed to his own German-Jewish family history as informing his approach to the Iranian president. Holbrook’s grandfather left Germany in 1933 after Hitler’s Mein Kampf was published.
“Getting out in 1933 was easy, but few Jews did it,” he said. Therefore, “I am strongly of the view that when someone says the stuff Ahmadinejad says, we have to take it seriously.”
Holbrooke advocates holding Ahmadinejad accountable for incitement to genocide under the Genocide Convention.
The evening marked Holbrooke’s second local appearance in six years. “I feel like I’m home in New Jersey,” he said.
--TOP--
Comment: comments@njjewishnews.com
