Zbigniew Brzezinski - A Manifesto For the Next President

David Ignatius writes an Op-Ed today about Zbigniew Brzezinski's new book, Second Chance. Brzezinski writes that there is still perhaps one more chance to capture an historic opportunity to re-establish the US as a true Super Power, not based on grandiose schemes of world domination, but about world leadership. Brzezinski's thesis is based on his perception that the world has awakened to a common awareness of the need for human dignity. Ignatius uses his column to connect Obama to this thesis, even thought he admits he doesn't have a clue what Obama thinks.
But his idealism is shared by many. Whatever happened to that "shining city on the hill" so tarnished by the policies of the president that called us that and the Republican presidents that followed. Brzezinski's book is headed for my shelf.
washingtonpost.com

Brzezinski's real focus is the "catastrophic leadership" of the current president. Regular talk-show watchers know Brzezinski's views, but he lays them out here in blistering language: The war in Iraq "has caused calamitous damage to America's global standing," "has been a geopolitical disaster" and "has increased the terrorist threat to the United States." By Brzezinski's account, what drove Bush's presidency so far off course was a combination of sunny "End of History" optimism about America's ability to impose its values with a "Clash of Civilizations" gloom about the threat posed by Muslim enemies.


[..]Brzezinski argues that the world is undergoing a "global political awakening," which is apparent in radically different forms from Iraq to Indonesia, from Bolivia to Tibet. Though America has focused on its notion of what people want (democracy and the wealth created by free trade and open markets), Brzezinski points in a different direction: It's about dignity.


"The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening," he argues. His worry is that America -- enfeebled by "material self-indulgence, persistent social shortcomings, and public ignorance about the world" -- may not get it.


The next president, Brzezinski writes, will need "an instinctive grasp of the spirit of the times in a world that is stirring, interactive, and motivated by a vague but pervasive sense of prevailing injustice in the human condition."