Retired four-star Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, former commander of U.S. Central Command and a registered independent, is now the executive vice president at DynCorp International, a defense contractor based in Falls Church, Va. In 2002, he was a special envoy for the United States to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. With Iraq still making headlines and instability growing in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Zinni sat down recently with National Journal's Eugene Mulero to discuss the wars in the Middle East and what's ahead for the U.S. in that region. This is an edited transcript of the interview. Visit the archives page for more Insider Interviews.

Q: Which presidential candidate is offering the best strategy for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Zinni: I really don't think it matters whether it's [John] McCain or [Barack] Obama, I think we're going to be on the same course. I think we're about to conclude the agreement with the [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki government.... I think that will lay out the so-called timetable and the events that will occur. Whether it's McCain or Obama, that's going to be the track.

You have to look at what we're going to leave behind. There's going to be a necessity for a robust security assistance program. We've got to give the Iraqi security forces the wherewithal to sustain this calm or fragile calm and to improve their capabilities, become more responsible function properly in a democracy. That means educating their officers, training the troops, providing the right kind of equipment, having advisers there on the ground, probably working with them down the road in terms of exercises, helping bring them into the fold with the other allies in the region, with the Gulf Cooperation Council down the road.

I think that our presence there will be determined by this agreement -- whether it's 16 months or two years or whatever it is. It will slowly see us move out and be replaced.... We will retain a presence in the region. We have friends in the region, obviously, like the Kuwaitis and [United Arab] Emirates and others, and we will continue our mission there to secure the flow of energy, to help prevent extremist activity.

Q: Some critics argue that there is no benefit to engaging on this issue and that it will be difficult to find a solution.

Zinni: I think a solution is forming itself. You go back to this U.S. and Iraqi government plan that looks like it's going to be finalized. I think that will be the driver -- it will set timelines and force levels, I imagine, and residual security forces, military-to-military relationships going forward, political relationships. I really believe this thing is moving on its own momentum now. And neither candidate will have [a] much different approach. It will settle itself out now. Barring anything extraordinary, I can't imagine a resurgent al-Qaeda in Iraq. I don't see that happening. I think the Sunnis have rejected that. Obviously, the Shiites and the Kurds are not fans of al-Qaeda.

I think the biggest danger may be that the Maliki government doesn't progress and the ethnic differences get in some ways exacerbated to the point where there's conflict. We have to help the Maliki government. They have to manage well. I think [Maliki] understands the need to really deal with these differences, in terms of revenue sharing, the role of Islam in government....

I think we have the right people in play. I respect [Gen.] Dave Petraeus greatly, [Gen.] Ray Odierno is really experienced now in Iraq, has been there for quite a while, and Ryan Crocker, the ambassador there, has been fantastic. I've seen him in many tough spots around the world. I wish that lineup had been there from the beginning. I think it might have been different.

Q: How should the U.S. handle Pakistan?

Zinni: We have multiple problems with Pakistan, and they are inextricably tied to Afghanistan. You can't separate the two.... We have to work with the government.... The more important relationship, though, is the military-to-military relationship. It's been strained ever since the first Afghan War, unfortunately. We sanctioned the military when we shouldn't have and they felt betrayed in many ways over the issue of testing nukes in response to the Indian testing. The military-to-military relationship is one we need to make stronger. Get their officers to our schools, work very closely with them. Give them the capacity to deal with the problems in the tribal areas. You know, there are certain capabilities they don't possess, like night-vision capabilities and the attack helos on the ground. They need assistance on border security control measures.... They are going to engage the tribal leaders and probably try to work through sort of arrangement; they would prefer that rather than conflict. Now that's a little bit difficult for us, because we have to make sure that arrangement doesn't come into some sort of deal that says, Nothing is going to happen inside Pakistan but there will continue to be sanctuaries or bases for projecting problems into Afghanistan....

What's interesting is this business going on in Saudi Arabia, with the Taliban and Afghan leadership there sitting at the table. It's hard to read into what's going on and... what's behind all of this and what's motivating them to suddenly now want to talk....

The other issue you have inside Afghanistan is a very awkward military situation. We have NATO in there. NATO is a mixed bag. As [Army] General [Eric] Shinseki used to say, you have swimmers and non-swimmers, fighters and non-fighters. You have the Canadians, the Brits, the Dutch and us that are willing to mix it up. There are others who are not willing to provide the troop levels necessary. Or, when they get there, they're not willing to engage. And to me, we invoked the article in the NATO charter that said an attack on one is an attack on all, after 9/11. And by the way, the London, Madrid, almost Berlin -- NATO has been attacked, not just the United States, but Europe, too. This is a defining moment for NATO. There needs to be a come-to-Jesus moment and now's the time to pony up and live up to that commitment.

Q: What impact did Canada's increased military spending have in Afghanistan?

Zinni: You know, Canada normally looks more to peacekeeping and other things, but when the time came, they did stand up. It was a little bit difficult politically for them, I think, up there because it hasn't been the trend. They've looked more at what some of the other NATO countries have done, to look more at a peacekeeping kind of role and not so much a combat role, but they stood up to it. Of course, the Brits did and have been for a long time. We've seen the Dutch do it. And certain others. But this needs to carry throughout NATO. We can't have some people who put their soldiers at risk and others that don't. The nations have to be unified in this.

Also, the problem it presents -- you have CENTCOM, that really isn't a NATO command. NATO command comes out of Europe -- you have NATO forces on the ground under NATO command. You have a U.S. commander there that responds to a U.S. command chain. So you get into some of these chain-of-command issues that could be problematic on the ground....

There are so many players involved in this thing, and the relationships are so complicated and strained in some cases. So building them, strengthening them, getting the cooperation, coordinating these activities, getting common understanding on [the] approach and the strategic direction we take -- these are the challenges and issues we're going to face there.

Q: I read that you have said Iran was building a nuclear weapon?

Zinni: I think that's been their aim all along. They see the possession of these weapons down the road at some point as some sort of credibility they get.... I think the mistake in many cases we make is we talk to Iran as if every Iranian is [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. And they're not. I think we ought to talk more past him toward the reformers and the youth, whom I think are not happy with the course of events that this hard-line leadership represents. They like Western culture, they like to enjoy the fruits of modernity. At the same time, they're very proud, nationalistic. It's easy for the hardliners to say, "You're surrounded by the Americans."...

I think we need to do more work in the region to get regional collective security back on track. I think the [former Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld decision in Iraq destroyed the Gulf coalition that we had there. We need to rebuild that. Certainly those that I talk to in the region see Iran as the greatest threat in the region, and we need to construct some sort of collective security now that makes sense and is doable to try to make a bulwark around it. Ahmadinejad is trying to dismantle our relationships in the region. And we've sort of helped that cause by what we did in Iraq and the way we did it. We need to rebuild that now. It's critical.... At the same time [we] need to try to engage Iranian society in [a] constructive way. The way you're going to see change in there is not from threats from the outside, but to help encourage the change from within the society.

Q: If you were offered a post in an Obama administration, would you take it?

Zinni: I don't think so. I'm not really interested in that. But I've served my country ever since I was 18 years old in some capacity. I would not say I wouldn't serve if the president asked. I would be more inclined to try and serve for some specific purpose, like when this administration had asked me to engage in the Israeli-Palestinian mediation effort. That's more the kind of thing I like to do, rather than some sort of bureaucratic position in Washington.

Q: What will be the Bush administration's legacy?

Zinni: Who knows what historians will say? But this will be seen as an administration that knee-jerked into events, that made some tremendous miscalculations, that didn't manage things too well. I don't think history ever says, "Well, look at the long-term outcome," and then you can go back 20 years and justify mismanagement, incompetence, arrogance, poor planning just because it happened to work out. You know, I can make the case we won in Vietnam. We stopped the dominoes from falling throughout Southeast Asia. Communism has failed. Vietnam is now reaching out to us and embracing us. We can make that argument. But can you go back and look at [Robert] McNamara and the [Johnson] administration and say, well, that justifies the incompetence and the poor planning and the misjudgments that were made on a strategic level out there, and misunderstanding who Ho Chi Minh was, the nationalist feeling, the depth of the problems, the conduct of the war even at the strategic and operational and tactical levels? No. I don't think you're forgiven your sins just by the outcome in the long term. That will be the legacy. There were truly gross mistakes that were made -- the rationale for the war, the rejection of a decade's worth of planning, the arrogance, the false assumptions, the lack of cultural understanding and situational awareness on the ground. That was all knowable. To quote [Virginia Democratic Sen.] Jim Webb, "It was predictable and predicted."

Q: Have the presidential candidates learned these lessons?

Zinni: I think they have.... I would think either administration would certainly ensure there are multiple voices that are heard.... I think the lesson of being able to build a cohesive team, where you can't have, say, the secretary of State and the secretary of Defense at each others' throats. I think that's where the leadership comes in with the White House. You know, the first Bush administration, you had some very strong people in that. You had Jim Baker, secretary of State, you had [Dick] Cheney, secretary of Defense, Colin Powell as chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], Brent Scowcroft as national security adviser -- there are no shrinking violets there. That was a cohesive team that really worked well together. And that says a lot about the kind of approach the president has to create. That kind of environment, that kind of teamwork, where everybody has access, everybody's voice is heard. When you choose sides, or you reject or isolate one element, I think you lose something. You're hearing one voice, one drumbeat, one set of facts, and that doesn't lead to good decision-making.

CORRECTION: The original version of this report incorrectly stated Zinni's political affiliation. He is an independent.

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