Clinton Legacy Watch #35: THE MELTDOWN OF
DIPLOMATIC ‘CULTS OF PERSONALITY’

(Washington, D.C.): Last week, State Department spokesman James
Rubin made an
extraordinary announcement. On the margins of a NATO meeting in Brussels, Madeleine
Albright’s press flak and trusted advisor declared: “[Serbian President Slobodan]
Milosevic has
been at the center of every crisis in the former Yugoslavia over the last decade. He is not
simply part of the problem — Milosevic is the problem.”

‘Duh!’

What makes this statement extraordinary, of course, is not its perspicacity. It has
been obvious
from the moment Milosevic first sent Serb troops marauding into Slovenia in 1991 that the
“Butcher of Belgrade” was bent on raising up a “Greater Serbia” out of the ashes of the
former, Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. Toward this end, he would use both his own
forces and
those of proxies to engage in campaigns of indiscriminate rape, pillaging and genocidal “ethnic
cleansing.”

No, what is remarkable about Jamie Rubin’s declaration is that it was issued on
behalf of a
government that has, arguably, done more than any other to keep Slobodan Milosevic in
power. Even this week, President Clinton’s special envoy and UN
Ambassador-designate,
Richard Holbrooke, was in the Serbian capital treating with the dictator whose bacon the
Clinton-Holbrooke team has saved repeatedly over the past six years.

For example, in the run-up to the United States’ 1996 presidential election — when President
Clinton expected to be harshly attacked by his Republican opponent, Bob Dole, for deliberately
neglecting and otherwise contributing to the bloodletting in Bosnia — the U.S. government finally
intervened. Holbrooke insisted that the Muslim and Croat forces, who were decisively defeating
Milosevic’s surrogates on the ground and liberating Bosnian territory that had been ruthlessly
seized and “cleansed” by Serbs, suspend their operations. A series of negotiations ensued, leading
up to the Holbrooke-brokered “peace” agreement signed with much fanfare at Dayton, Ohio.

In fact, the Dayton deal did nothing to ensure the long-term reconciliation essential to a
genuine
and durable peace. To be sure, thanks to the introduction of thousands of U.S. and other troops
and the expenditure of huge sums ($10 billion out of the Pentagon’s hide to date), there is an
absence of hostilities at the moment in Bosnia. But no one who knows the Balkans is under any
illusion: Once the foreign troops are gone, the fighting will resume.

A Diplomatic ‘Cult of Personality’

This is true in no small measure because the Dayton accords were fabricated so as to conceal
and
deny the fundamental truth Jamie Rubin has belatedly acknowledged. Far from holding Milosevic
accountable — to say nothing of bringing him to justice and ensuring that he would never again be
able to engage in crimes against humanity — the Clinton-Holbrooke team transformed
the
Serb dictator into a man of peace, a statesman and the cornerstone of its diplomacy in the
Balkans.

By so doing, Washington gave wholly undeserved legitimacy to a psychopath, shoring up his
standing at home at a moment when hundreds of thousands of Serbs courageously took to the
streets to demand democratic liberties and reforms Milosevic has long denied them. It also lent
credibility to the absurd lie that Slobo’s henchmen — Bosnian Serb psychiatrist-turned-mass
murderer Radovan Karadzic and Serbian Army General Ratko
Mladic — were war criminals,
but not the man who ordered and enabled their predations. (Is it any wonder that Milosevic told
the Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth last week that he had no intention of surrendering Mladic
or Karadzic to the international war crimes tribunal on Bosnia?)

Worse yet, the Clinton-Gore Administration has compounded its earlier responsibility for the
countless thousands of Croats and Bosnians whose lives were shattered or prematurely terminated
with its malign neglect of the Serbian assault on Kosovo. It is appalling to see Milosevic
repeating his previous triumph — by wreaking whatever havoc serves his purposes; then allowing
the egomaniacal Richard Holbrooke to get credit for negotiating an agreement that largely
preserves and consolidates Milosevic’s ill-gotten gains and affirms the Serbian dictator’s
indispensability to what passes for “peace-making” in the Balkans.

Other Examples

As it happens, events are demonstrating — and to varying degrees the Administration
is
actually acknowledging — the error of what might be called Mr. Clinton’s diplomatic “cults
of personality” in other parts of the world, as well. Recently, Deputy Secretary
of State
Strobe Talbott gave a speech distancing the Clinton Administration, at long last, from
its
reflexive, unconditional support of Boris Yeltsin’s regime in Russia. The
so-called “moderate”
President Muhammad Khatami of Iran, with whom the Administration has
hoped to improve
relations, is proving either unable or unwilling to staunch Tehran’s involvement in terrorism and
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

In North Korea, the deal struck in 1994 with the despotic Kim dynasty by
another Clinton special
envoy, Robert Gallucci, has also proven to be a mug’s game. Despite the North’s promises
contained in the so-called “Agreed Framework” to give up its nuclear weapons program,
Pyongyang has apparently simply moved it underground, where it would be easier to shield from
U.S. intelligence.

Even though the military strike begun yesterday apparently does not have as its objective the
removal of Saddam Hussein from power, President Clinton finally espoused that goal after years
of pretending that simply “containing” or multilaterally disarming the Iraqi despot would suffice.
Unfortunately, Mr. Clinton chose just this week to embrace, empower and embolden Yasser
Arafat, one of Saddam’s most reliable friends and a man who aspires to become the authoritarian
ruler of the world’s next nation, Palestine.

The Bottom Line

American diplomacy is in disarray — seriously undermining the Nation’s power and
international
prestige at a time when U.S. interests around the world are under increasing assault. It is time to
focus on principles, not personalities, in fashioning policies that will protect, rather than
jeopardize those interests.

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