The Political Interest It's All Foreign to Clinton

By Michael Kramer

! Like most people, Bill Clinton is uncomfortable with what he doesn't know and avoids dealing with it. Fortunately for him, the nation he leads usually cares more about Madonna than Mogadishu; its turn inward following the cold war's end coincides neatly with the President's passion for domestic affairs. In even the most arcane of those areas, Clinton's expertise is astonishing, and he long ago articulated his formula for success: "You do your homework, you chart clear goals, you make sure all the parts mesh, and then, even though you have to bend some to get stuff passed, you stick by the key pieces of your plan till you accomplish your goals." But consistency and constancy, the critical prerequisites to the successful pursuit of any policy, are missing abroad. Why? It may be that Clinton's foreign and defense policy team is second-rate, judging from its performance in Somalia. Or it may be that a President whose interest flags at the water's edge is simply a slave to public and congressional opinion when he lacks his own clear bearings. Still, it is possible to understand where consistency and constancy would lead if the Administration were functioning properly overseas. Consider some current cases:

SOMALIA Now that Defense Secretary Les Aspin has said the March 31, 1994, withdrawal date of U.S. troops is "etched in stone," there is little doubt Somalia will revert to the ruinous state that inspired America's intervention in the first place. But a policy that truly cared about ends would be open- ended. However one defines the Somali mission, Clinton's desire to finish it "in the right way" ought to mean staying until the possibility of reversion is more than just "reasonably" foreclosed. Seeking an exit strategy before sailing in harm's way is smart, but it must be related to the mission's goal; an arbitrary deadline for withdrawal -- especially one hostage to volatile domestic opinion -- is not an exit strategy worthy of the term.

Preserving U.S. credibility is Clinton's other stated objective. He foresees an "open season on Americans" if "aggressors, thugs and terrorists . . . conclude that the best way to get us to change our policies is to kill our people." Which means what? A Defense Department official says hunting down General Aidid, the warlord responsible for targeting America's soldiers, is "definitely still an option." But the State Department insists that the increased U.S. troop presence is merely meant to protect the forces already there, and Clinton has signaled a willingness to negotiate rather than kill Aidid. "We have no interest in denying anybody access to playing a role in Somalia's political future," the President said last Friday. That's exactly wrong, says Henry Kissinger, who argues that failing to strike back at the forces that struck Americans virtually guarantees that the wrong lesson will be learned. The world's other mischief-makers will have no fear, says Kissinger, until the U.S. reduces Aidid's "power base so that it's apparent that when you tackle the U.S. in the brutal way in which it has been done, there is a penalty."

BOSNIA Future humanitarian interventions, the do-good exercises that so charmed Clinton before he took office, seem destined to be judged worthwhile only if the cost in American lives is negligible or nonexistent -- which rules out virtually everything besides earthquake relief. Bosnia will almost surely be a casualty of Somalia. In February, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said, "The world's response to the violence in the former Yugoslavia is a crucial test of how it will address the concerns of ethnic and religious minorities in the post-cold war world . . . Bold tyrants and fearful minorities are watching to see whether 'ethnic cleansing' is a policy the world will tolerate." They have their answer. With so many Americans disgusted with Clinton's handling of Somalia, it's hard to see how the President could command the public and congressional support necessary for a Bosnian adventure.

EASTERN EUROPE "In a new era of peril and opportunity," Clinton told the U.N. last month, "our overriding purpose must be to expand the world's community of market-based economies . . . We seek to enlarge the circle of nations that live under those free institutions." That goal has led the U.S. to support Boris Yeltsin at all costs, which has so far meant ignoring his authoritarian impulses. Russia is a special case, of course, but other states of the former Soviet empire eager for democracy and free markets are also eager for security from Russia. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic view membership in an expanded NATO as the way to achieve it. Against the wishes of his army, Yeltsin seemed to agree last August. Now, however, the Russian President has changed course, apparently as part of a deal with the military, without whose support Yeltsin would have been deposed last week -- and Washington has swallowed that too.

Locking countries like Poland and Hungary into the free world's premier defense alliance would serve Clinton's goals and ensure that if Russia reverts to totalitarianism, at least a few hundred million more people will be outside Moscow's easy grasp. Right now, potential Western investors are holding back from Central Europe, and who can blame them? Offer those businesses a more secure environment and they'll create the markets Clinton wants.

FOREIGN AID Thriving markets, Clinton says, are impossible without free trade. Totally free markets are a myth, but the Administration's recent decision to adopt "tied-aid" practices is inconsistent with Clinton's support for NAFTA and for a new, freer global-trade regime. Tied aid forces recipients of U.S. financial help to spend some of the dollars they receive on American goods and services. The U.S. has long criticized Japan, France, Germany and other countries for attaching strings to roughly $6 billion in their foreign assistance in exactly the manner Clinton has now proposed. "There is way too much of it, in ways that cost Americans way too many dollars and jobs and export opportunities that we could win under any free- market scenario imaginable," the President said last month.

Why, then, do two wrongs make a right in this case? They don't, as the State Department insisted. But Clinton sided with his trade negotiators, saying his decision was necessary to "counter the tied-aid practices of our competitors." At the modest levels proposed, a mere $150 million, Clinton's action won't deter anyone. What it will do is cede the moral high ground to those who have pursued tied aid for decades and entrench such subsidies for years to come. The President has "been captured by those who want to whack Japan," says a White House aide. "He's acting petulantly, not to mention inconsistently. We'll pay for this in scores of ways as we try to push for freer trade. It's not just stupid; it's counterproductive."

CHINA NUKES "If we do not stem the proliferation of the world's deadliest weapons, no democracy can feel secure," Clinton told the U.N. That's right, of course, and so is the President's first ever call to ban the production of nuclear weapons. But Clinton's instruction that the U.S. prepare again to test such weapons, a knee-jerk response to China's recent nuclear test, represents one more inconsistency. Resuming American testing would also make it harder to ( extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which expires in 1995. The truly pernicious problem, says a senior Defense Department official, "is that if we start testing again, others will follow. As we see in every dealing with Beijing, China wants to show it's a big-deal country that can't be pushed around. You accept that need, and you deal with it diplomatically. You don't open a can of worms testing your own stuff simply to prove that our nukes are bigger than theirs."

At too many points in foreign and defense policy, Clinton is responding like Everyman rather than as the Commander in Chief and leader of the free world. "The role of the President in foreign affairs is to fight the American public," says Paul Nitze, the veteran diplomat who began his career in the Truman Administration. The President must "teach the public that things they want in the short term are not really in their interest." Nitze also knows that Clinton's basic foreign policy goals are vintage American ideals. It was he who drafted the 1950 National Security Council document that grandly set U.S. cold war strategy "as one designed to foster a world environment in which the American system can survive and flourish," rhetoric that caused the U.S. to contest communism at every turn for four decades. With the cold war over, America has survived. To continue flourishing, Clinton must apply to the rest of the world the constancy and consistency he has often displayed at home.