"Thank God there are generals smarter than some presidents.

There is no more eloquent a spokesman for our military’s understanding of what went wrong in Iraq with America’s unilateral military action and lack of commitment to post-war stabilization and reconstruction than retired Gen. Anthony Zinni.

Zinni, who headed the U.S. Central Command in the Middle East prior to the current war, has written two books about our nation’s role in the world and how we must work well with others.

He has also been mentioned in recent weeks as a possible vice-presidential running mate for Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

Zinni did not sound much like an Obama ticket partner in a speech on the Middle East the night of March 6 at Washington and Lee University’s Lee Chapel.

Introduced as someone on short lists for vice president, he smiled and shook his head no before proving he meant it.

A packed chapel heard Zinni describe a lengthy role for American power - not just the sharp steel power of the military but the soft power of diplomats and builders - in rebuilding Iraq and providing a security umbrella for its recovery.

He explained how China is taking great advantage of America’s military umbrella in the Middle East at no cost to the Chinese as Americans pay in blood and treasure to protect the flow of oil.

"China is everywhere and they are providing humanitarian assistance," the general noted with a hint of grudging acknowledgment that the Chinese know better the balance required of power.

"They are investing in countries. They are encouraging investment back in their economy," he said.

"They are doing everything but the military piece. We are doing it for them" to guarantee the flow of oil to world markets by providing and paying dearly for our security umbrella in the unstable Middle East.

The Chinese, Zinni said, are "using those elements of power that we tend not to, and use them very effectively [in] their diplomacy."

Entirely too blunt for the role of a national political figure, Zinni sounded themes of speaking truth to power while acknowledging tremendous mistakes of the past five years but also laying out a future course that includes necessary American military presence in the region for many years.

For five years, we have not done a good job of training the Iraqis to take over their own security, he insisted.

"This is not the war we trained for. This is not the war we planned for," Zinni quoted a fellow general assaying of Iraq once American military power completed a three-week war sweeping into Baghdad and created an open-ended occupation without any of the other successful elements of power needed to create stability.

The American military did its traditional job in a matter of weeks and now sits and occupies a dangerous power vacuum, without the flowers and praise predicted by neo-conservatives whose strategy for creating a spark of democracy President Bush swallowed.

The general faulted the president for throwing out the planning done by the military and the State Department that called for many more troops, secure borders, long-promised continued employment of the Iraqi military and a plan for rebuilding, which was shredded by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and a now discredited school of neo-con dreamers promising the power of suddenly imposed democracy.

Zinni, 64, has a son completing a military deployment in Iraq and asked him recently what his unit’s biggest success on the ground has been.

His son’s response was to cite the rebuilding of an oil facility needed to give Iraqis hope for their future, not some list of body counts, Zinni said.

Zinni’s charm is a mix of realism and optimism and a belief in the promise of America learning quickly from its mistakes.

The military he served in as a Marine wounded in Vietnam was in far worse shape than today’s resilient, yet overstretched, American military, he said.

He preaches worldwide stability and development through hardheaded use of the soft power of acting with other nations, diplomacy, negotiation and mediation instead of unilateral military strength.

A professor at Duke and Cornell, he has taught at eight colleges since retiring from the Marines as a four-star general. Virginia Military Institute and the College of William & Mary are among his recent postings.

The generation of Americans born since 1982, the so-called Millennial generation, is a confident group of multitasking young people comfortable being steeped in technology and willing to serve in many ways throughout the world, he said.

This group of 26-year-olds-and-unders would respond magnificently toward "some sort of national service, whether it is in the Peace Corps or exposing them to a non-governmental organization" building communities around the world, Zinni said.

"This isn’t Generation X. This isn’t the ‘Me’ generation," he said.

"It’s a generation that I think gets it." Those in that generation joined listeners in others in gratitude to a blunt retired general no politician is likely to tame." (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, March 9, 2008)