Damage Limitation in the Wake of the New Press Misspokesman
(Washington, D.C.): In the ten days
since James Rubin was formally installed
by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
as the new State Department Press
Spokesman, he has displayed an unsettling
tendency. He has repeatedly made sweeping
statements — some flatly in error, some
simply fatuous and many inappropriately
flippant — that threaten to disserve
U.S. interests. At the very least, they
reinforce the international perception
that the Clinton Administration is not
serious about the conduct of the Nation’s
foreign and defense policies.
Consider the following sampler from
Jamie Rubin’s first days as State’s
Mispokesman:
- As noted by the Center last week,(1)
Rubin disputes any suggestion
that Yasser Arafat is part of the
problem, not the solution to
bringing peace to the troubled
Middle East, with an increasingly
unpersuasive mantra:
“Chairman Arafat was on the
White House lawn with the
President. He signed a peace
agreement with the Israelis. We
regard him as a partner in our
effort to find peace in the
Middle East.” - Even a veteran State Department
journalist felt constrained to
upbraid Rubin a week ago for
cynically announcing that the
Clinton Administration takes U.S.
law seriously but would do
nothing to prevent the PLO from
flouting it. That is the
practical effect of Arafat’s
organization’s maintaining a
Washington office and operation
in all but name — despite the
expiration of a waiver to
statutes prohibiting such
activities in the United States. - On Monday, Rubin enthused about
North Korea’s compliance with its
obligations under an multilateral
agreement to suspend its nuclear
operations. He declared that
there is “major progress and
significant progress” in
ensuring that the North’s
“nuclear program will stay
frozen and ultimately be
dismantled.” Indeed, Rubin
announced that, “We have
stopped the possibility of a
major nuclear program breaking
out in the dangerous Korean
Peninsula.” - This is, of course, seriously
misleading. On August 13, the
Clinton Administration issued a
report on compliance with arms
control agreements that notes
that North Korea “has not
allowed ‘special inspections’
pursuant to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty”
and continues to “obstruct
the full implementation” of
safeguards required by that
accord. Such behavior
significantly diminishes the
value of the multilateral
“agreed framework” and
Pyongyang’s selective
“compliance” therewith. - What is more, the North is now
widely believed to have at least
a few nuclear weapons. It remains
in a position to utilize the
by-products of its previous
nuclear program to make more and
will, thanks to the new reactors
being built with U.S., South
Korean and Japanese help, obtain
far larger quantities of the
materials needed to manufacture a
substantial arsenal of these
weapons. - As noted by the Center yesterday,(2)
in response to an important
op.ed. article published in the Washington
Times by retired Lieutenant
General Gordon Sumner and Howard
Phillips on August 18, Rubin
pooh-poohed concerns about
ominous developments in Panama.
For example, he sweepingly
dismissed concerns about the
security threat to the Canal
posed by the apparent interest of
the People’s Republic of China
and drug-traffickers to fill the
vacuum being created by the U.S.
retreat from the isthmus,
declaring “…None of the
activities that may or may
not be going on there is
going to affect our national
security.”
Misrepresenting the New
U.S. Position on Banning Anti-Personnel
Landmines
Perhaps Jamie Rubin’s most
unforgivable gaffe to date occurred when
he mischaracterized an important aspect
of President Clinton’s latest initiative
to appease those pressing for a ban on
anti-personnel landmines (APLs). On
August 18, Rubin amplified on an
announcement issued from the presidential
vacation site in Martha’s Vineyard to the
effect that the Administration had
decided after all to “participate in
the Ottawa process.” This is
diplospeak for a new-found willingness to
reach agreement on a Canadian-sponsored
treaty by the end of December — even
though it will represent a
less-than-global, assuredly unverifiable
and certifiably ineffective ban on APLs.
According to Rubin, the United States
will seek certain changes to the draft
treaty now under consideration. It would
insist, for example, on preserving the
U.S. right to use long-duration
anti-personnel landmines in Korea.(3)
Rubin also says the Clinton team will
seek to alter the information exchange
provisions and definitions used in the
Ottawa treaty so as to “improve
verification” and prevent non-APL
weapons (for example, anti-tank
landmines) from being captured by this
accord.
Unfortunately, Rubin
mischaracterized the new U.S. position in
one key respect. He declared
three times that the United States would
not insist on an exclusion for
self-destructing/self-deactivating or
short-duration (sometimes called
“smart”) anti-personnel
landmines. In fact, at the insistence of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the
presidentially approved initiative would
allow continued American use of such
weapons, as long as they are packaged
together with anti-tank landmines. This
synergistic practice minimizes the
prospect that enemy forces will readily
be able to clear areas sowed with
anti-tank mines. It represents an
enormous concession on the part of the
Chiefs who, until last Friday, had
correctly maintained that their forces
required the ability to use
short-duration APLs, with or without
anti-tank devices.
The Bottom Line
It remains to be seen how lasting will
be the damage caused by Jamie Rubin’s
pronouncements on the landmine issue.
Presumably clarifications of the U.S.
stance will be forthcoming and the team
being dispatched to Oslo next month to
participate in the fast-track treaty will
have clear instructions. Still, the
combined effect of the eroding American
position and the Press Misspokesman’s
erroneous characterization of what
remains of it will presumably serve to
make all the more problematic the
negotiation of a landmine treaty with
which the U.S. military can literally
live.
The larger question, of course, is:
How much damage will Rubin inflict on
other vital U.S. interests with
ill-considered, intemperate or inaccurate
statements? He evidently enjoys Mrs.
Albright’s confidence; if the first ten
days of his tenure are any guide, he will
not long enjoy that of the rest of the
Nation.
–
30 –
1. See the
Center’s Decision Brief
entitled Denial Is No Basis
For Securing A Durable Mideast Peace
(No. 97-D_110,
11 August 1997).
2. See the
Center’s Decision Brief
entitled Will The U.S. Cede
The Strategic ‘Path Between The Seas’ To
The People’s Republic Of China And/Or
Narco-Traffickers? (
August 1997).
3. Rubin seemed to
justify this demand as much on the
grounds that that mission was an
internationally sanctioned one as on the
fact that such weapons are deemed by the
American military to be essential to the
defense of South Korea — and the
protection of U.S. troops deployed on the
peninsula for that purpose. Evidently,
the Administration’s multilateralist
impulses cause them to believe that, in
circumstances where the U.S. decides it
has to be prepared to fight without
a UN mandate, APLs cannot be justified.
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