VALHALLA In the wake of the Paris terror attacks, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger painted a dark portrait of the geopolitical upheaval in Iraq and Syria during an appearance at Westchester Community College.
The 92-year-old diplomat and adviser to a string of presidents says an international coalition, including the United States, needs to strike the Islamic State terror group and "deprive its ability to claim a caliphate."
"The first thing surely that has to be done is destroy ISIS," he said.
Kissinger's remarks came during a 90-minute "Presidents' Forum" on "Building a World Order" in the college's Academic Arts Theatre. Hunched over in a wooden chair, Kissinger spoke slowly, in his thick, gravelly German accent as he called for working with Sunni, Shia and Kurdish groups and including Russia in the discussion. Kissinger said he opposes “boots on the ground."
"It should not be left to the United States alone," he told an audience of about 300 who paid $75 to $300 per ticket. "I don't think a large scale commitment is necessary."
ISIS claimed responsibility on Saturday for the gun and bomb attacks on a stadium, a concert hall and Paris cafes that killed 129 people and wounded 350.
"Everday it survives it is an intruding mechanism as we've seen in Europe now and probably see more of in the future," Kissinger warned. "ISIS will probably continue as a kind of separate territory."
The forum also included former Deputy Secretary of Start William J. Burns and moderator Lester Crystal, a former executive producer of ''The Newshour With Jim Lehrer'' on PBS.
Kissinger was secretary of state under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for negotiating American military withdrawal from Vietnam.
Nearly 40 years after he left the office, Kissinger can still spark controversy, though.
A sign-waving group of about a dozen protesters shouted slogans blaming Kissinger for "war crimes" for his tenure under Nixon.
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