Memo to Next President: Don’t Do Deals with Dictators

(Washington, D.C.): The conventional wisdom has it that tonight’s debate
between Governor
Bush and Vice President Gore will touch more substantively on foreign policy issues. If so, it’s
about time.

After all, Bill Clinton’s chickens have begun coming home to roost — and many of them are
likely to become serious problems for the next Commander-in-Chief and the Nation. This is
most immediately evident in the Middle East, where the unraveling of the Administration’s
efforts to euchre Israel into concessions that will produce yet another unworkable “peace” accord
with the Palestinians has literally exploded in Mr. Clinton’s face. Other flashpoints poised to “go
critical” might include: Colombia, Venezuela, Haiti, the Korean peninsula, the Taiwan Strait,
Indonesia, Panama, Albania and Kashmir.

Matters will only be made worse if President Clinton is able to pull off his agenda for the
remaining months he has in office — namely, to try to “change the facts on the ground” for his
successor by normalizing relations with virtually every bad actor on the planet. Think of the
possibilities for legacy-making “breakthroughs”: Mr. Clinton has announced that he is going to
Vietnam after the election; China doubtless wonders what President Clinton has done for it
lately; Syria may require bribes to postpone becoming directly involved in the current Arab
onslaught against Israel; Iraq is breaking down one of the last vestiges of its earlier UN-imposed
isolation as more and more countries start making unauthorized flights to Baghdad; and Sudan
may need a consolation prize now that the Administration has succeeded in denying it a Security
Council seat.

There are, however, four initiatives that deserve special attention from the presidential
candidates
and their moderator, Jim Lehrer — President Clinton’s bid to improve ties with Cuba, North
Korea, Libya and Iran, steps that are receiving unexpected and unwarranted help from the
Republican-controlled Congress. These initiatives were the subject of a column in yesterday’s
Washington Times by the Center for Security Policy’s President, Frank J. Gaffney,
Jr., which
makes uses the recent experience with Serbia to underscore a fundamental truism of foreign
policy: The United States cannot defeat dictators through dialogue, economic or political
engagement, appeasement, etc. Ignoring this not only prolongs needless suffering in the
countries affected, but ends up costing America and her interests more in the long-run when the
bills come due.

The Washington Times, 10 October 2000

Perils of Dealing with Dictators

By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

Timing is everything. Last week, the people of Serbia offered an inspiring reminder of how
fragile even the most seemingly entrenched of dictatorships actually are when faced with a
popular revolt backed by international efforts to deny the regime legitimacy.

This week, the U.S. Congress is set to vote on an agriculture appropriations bill that threatens
to
impart new legitimacy to the totalitarian governments of Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Libya by
authorizing the sale of American food products to those countries. If only because this breach in
the sanctions regimes imposed by the United States on each of these nations will allow the latter
to feed their people better — assuming, for the moment, that the food will actually wind up in the
mouths of the population as a whole, rather than just the military and other members of the ruling
elite — it will probably help to alleviate such pressure for systemic change as the dictators in
Havana, Tehran, Pyongyang and Tripoli might currently feel.

To be sure, the legislation is not as bad as it might have been with respect to Cuba. Thanks to
the
concerted opposition of members of the House Republican leadership and others who remained
determined to keep the pressure on Fidel Castro, U.S. government and private sector financing of
food purchases by the Cubans would continue to be prohibited.

This proviso means that, for the time being at least, U.S. taxpayers may be able to avoid in
connection with Cuba the kind of double-whammy they have been dealt in the past: The
Treasury Department was obliged to make good on hundreds of millions of dollars in losses
arising from subsidized grain and other commodity sales that were undertaken for the
strategically benighted purpose of propping up Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Mikhail Gorbachev’s
Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, no such protections are in place with respect to North Korea, Iran or Libya.
But, if
the Clinton-Gore Administration has its way, taxpayer-underwritten food going to these
repressive regimes will be the least of the problem. It appears President Clinton hopes to leave a
legacy of fully normalized relations with each of these – and virtually every other, odious
government on the planet. Consider the following:

o North Korea: Mr. Clinton is meeting this week with a man described as dictator Kim
Jong-Il’s
right hand man, Cho Myong-nok. Mr. Clinton has called the visit “a big plus” for the prospects
of reconciliation between the United States and Communist North Korea. This enthusiasm seems
to have been buoyed by efforts the State Department has been making to help the North Koreans
get off its congressionally mandated list of countries that support international terrorism.

Toward that end, Washington and Pyongyang have just issued a joint communique in which
the
latter says, according to The Washington Post, that “it opposes all forms of terrorism
and
believes that all United Nations member states must refrain from such activity.” It is appalling
that the United States would dignify such a statement, let alone use it as a basis for improving
relations with Kim Jong-il’s regime, especially in light of the unabated efforts North Korea is
making to spread the most deadly instruments of terror known to man — ballistic missiles and
weapons of mass destruction — to its fellow rogue states.

o Iran: According to regional expert and journalist Kenneth Timmerman, “The top U.S.
diplomat
in charge of negotiations with Iran says Secretary of State Madeleine Albright wants a ‘global
settlement’ with Iran by the end of President Bill Clinton’s term of office – ‘if it takes that long.’ “
Evidently it was with this purpose in mind that Mr. Clinton on 19 September appointed that
diplomat, Ambassador David Andrews, to be his special negotiator for U.S./Iran claims.

o Libya: As it happens, Mr. Andrews was previously responsible for laying the groundwork
for
an earlier “global settlement” with another malevolent dictator – Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi. As
Mr. Timmerman notes, close observers of his handiwork in that instance like George Williams,
the immediate past president of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, felt it left much to be desired:
” ‘We caved in too soon. Dave Andrews gave away too much. Our FBI and CIA are not allowed
to investigate, or to ask questions of the suspects. And they are not allowed to question or
investigate the involvement of the Libya government’ in the bombing, said Williams.”

As events in Serbia make clear, concessions made to endear ourselves to ruthless dictators
generally have the effect of not only legitimating but emboldening them. Had the United States
resisted Slobodan Milosevic a decade ago, instead of transforming him into a “partner for peace”
at Dayton as Mr. Holbrooke did, we may have been able to spare not only Serbia but the Balkans
more generally the horror “Slobo” and his minions inflicted on the region in the 1990s.

There is a lesson that could well prove even more important for our dealings with the
remaining
rogue states: Had we not provided political life-support to Mr. Milosevic when his people made
an earlier effort to remove him from power, we might be facing today a more pro-Western
successor regime than Vojislav Kostunica’s may turn out to be.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is the president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist
for The
Washington Times.