Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

I’m jealous of Phil Weiss. He gets to interview Zbigniew Brzezinski and gets paid to write about it! In his latest blog post, Phil informs us that while Barack Obama may not be for Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brzezinski sure likes Obama. I agree with Phil that Brzezinski presents an utterly compelling case for why Obama would make a much better president than either Clinton or McCain. This is what the former national security advisor had to say on the race:

“In my judgment the United States confronts, and the world, a fundamental historical discontinuity. The world of the cold war or earlier, the world of the struggle against the totalitarianism of the Nazi/Stalinist variety, is finished. We live in a complicated, much more dynamic, much more politically awakened world, in which the population of the world for the first time is politically active, stirring, restless, increasingly anti-western, increasingly anti-American. And to manage that world well one has to understand how history has changed, how the global context has changed. Hillary Clinton would be a perfectly competent president, but her view of the world in my judgment is quite conventional and traditional. That criticism is even more applicable to John McCain, who is in my view is a great patriot and a great hero but represents essentially the past. I have been impressed talking with Barack Obama and also from reading what he has been saying by the fact that he understands that this great historical discontinuity has taken place and that America has to redefine its place in the world. In fact, that America has to redefine itself. And I think that he symbolizes that needed change, and if he becomes president he can help America effectively make that change.”