The Eccentric Realist: Henry Kissinger and the Shaping of American Foreign Policy

Introduction

Introduction On the night of September 26, 2008, during an otherwise predictable presidential debate, Henry Kissinger—his thoughts, his words and, more importantly, their true meaning—suddenly became a heated topic of discussion between the two candidates. Barack Obama and John McCain were discussing the possibility of the United States engaging in high-level talks, “without conditions,” with some of America’s most loathed enemies, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran. Drawing a historical parallel, McCain claimed that the opening to China in 1972, one of the most renowned examples of U.S. engagement with a hitherto absolute enemy, had been carefully planned. Richard Nixon’s visit, McCain claimed, “was preceded by Henry Kissinger, many times before he went.” (Both claims were inaccurate: there was an element of improvisation during the entire process, and Kissinger had visited China only twice prior to Nixon’s trip to Beijing.) Obama did not miss the opportunity: “I’m glad that Senator McCain brought up the history, the bipartisan history of us engaging in direct diplomacy,” the soon-to-be-elected president argued. “Senator McCain 2 The Eccentric Realist mentioned Henry Kissinger, who’s one of his advisers, who, along with five recent Secretaries of State, just said that we should meet with Iran—guess what—without precondition.” “When we talk about preconditions—and Henry Kissinger did say we should have contacts without preconditions,” Obama continued, “the idea is that we do not expect to solve every problem before we initiate talks.” “My friend, Dr. Kissinger, who’s been my friend for 35 years,” McCain retorted “would be interested to hear this conversation and Senator Obama’s depiction of his...positions on the issue. I’ve known him for 35 years.”1 It mattered little to the two contenders that during those thirty-five years, Kissinger’s view of world affairs had rarely been presented as an enlightened model for U.S. statesmen and that many, on the Right and the Left, had often lambasted Nixon’s former national security czar for promoting and justifying a foreign policy devoid of moral scruples and humanitarian concerns. In many ways it also mattered little what Kissinger had actually said or suggested. (Despite Kissinger’s successive semantic acrobatics to help McCain by claiming he supported negotiations with Iraq that were “geared to reality,” Obama was largely right.)2 The contest was not so much over the merit of the issue or the strength of Kissinger’s argument , but its symbolic value. What both Obama and McCain sought was the mantle of Kissinger-the-symbol rather than the endorsement of Kissinger-the-expert. By invoking Kissinger’s authority and claiming his support, whether willing or unwilling, the presidential candidates looked to justify their positions and emphasize who was the greater realist. During the first term of the George W. Bush presidency (2001–5), some neoconservative intellectuals and senior advisors to the president scorned and derided the so-called reality-based community: those naïve people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” “We’re an empire now,” one aid to the president confessed to the author and journalist Ron Suskind: “when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will— we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”3 That was said, however, during a period of almost unprecedented imperial hubris in the United States. Fears and ideology stimulated this hubris and the ensuing dream of transforming the world, beginning with Introduction 3 the Middle East. Facts, or rather “reality,” forced a rapid retreat and the abandonment of such dreams. After the Iraqi fiasco, the most extreme neoconservative fantasies were confined once again to their proper place in intellectual circles, think tanks, in-house magazines, Fox TV, and the Internet . People capable of studying “discernible reality,” members of the “reality-based community,” were back in demand. Whatever Bush’s advisors may have argued during the post-9/11 ideological hangover, in the end politicians, statesmen, and common people alike are always required (and always believe) to be “realistic” in their choices and behavior. When it comes to foreign policy, however, being realistic does not necessarily mean being a realist. In...