Biden Must Face Kissinger’s Eastern Mediterranean Mistake

As the United States prepares to bury Henry Kissinger, an outsize figure in 20th century American diplomacy, many parts of the world continue to struggle with his legacy. Kissinger became famous for the breakthrough with communist China and won the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam. More people should be aware of his involvement in the 1971 Bangladeshi genocide.

On two sides of the globe, however, Kissinger’s legacy and penchant for prioritizing short-term concessions and coddling dictatorships threatens to return regions to far bloodier war.

First, there is Taiwan. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai played Kissinger’s vanity like a fiddle, winning concessions on Taiwan that communist leader Mao Zedong never expected to gain. By conceding Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan, Kissinger may have set China down the path to claim militarily a sovereignty it never had.

Then, there is Cyprus. In 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus and established a beachhead comprising 3% of the island, ostensibly to protect the Cypriot Muslim population as the Greek junta sought to unify Cyprus with Greece. The Greek junta fell a week later, and Greece both returned to democracy and forfeited its claims to Cyprus. It was only then, as peace talks continued in Geneva to compel withdrawal, that Turkey invaded again, this time absent any casus belli. It was a blatant land grab. Turkish troops seized and ethnically cleansed a third of the country; the occupation continues to the present.

 
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