Clinton Legacy Watch # 29: From Pax Americana To ‘Pack Up, Americans’

(Washington, D.C.): History appears increasingly likely to remember the Clinton presidency
as
the era in which the world’s only superpower lost its grip. As a result in no small measure of Mr.
Clinton’s fecklessness in the conduct of foreign policy and his misfeasance (if not malfeasance) in
providing for the national security, the international environment of Pax Americana he
inherited
has given way to one that might be characterized as “Pack Up, Americans.”

A Bill of Particulars

At first blush, the double bombings in Kenya and Tanzania seem to epitomize the extent to
which
the power of the United States has been squandered in the past six years. In fact, cowardly
terrorists have bombed U.S. embassies before this deplorable incident, and probably will do so
again in the future as they present inviting targets for those seeking to inflict harm on Americans
or their interests abroad.

The more telling evidence of the free-fall that has occurred on Mr. Clinton’s watch in
American prestige and ability to influence — if not actually to dictate — international
events
can be found in the following:

• Iraq: Saddam Hussein is manifestly clambering out of the “box” in which
  the Administration
  insists he is still confined. The Clinton strategy of relying upon the “international community”
  in general, and the U.N. Security Council in particular, to manage the Iraqi problem has failed.
  Saddam’s latest act of defiance in blocking UNSCOM inspections demonstrates not only the
  bad faith with which he always negotiates. It is also proof of the folly of contracting out U.S.
  foreign policy to intermediaries like Secretary General Kofi Anan and Russian Foreign Minister
  Yevgeny Primakov.

Since the latest crisis comes before the end of the U.S. government’s fiscal year, the
Pentagon is so strapped for funds that Administration spokesmen are loath to repeat
even the hollow threat to use force heard in response to previous Iraqi provocations.
And, as President Clinton still cannot bring himself to implement a serious
program for undermining the Butcher of Baghdad — by enabling the creation of
a Free Iraq, based upon the broadly based opposition group, the Iraqi National
Congress⁽¹⁾ — there is no reason for either the
people of Iraq or their neighbors to
believe that resistance, rather than accommodation, is the prudent course for dealing
with Saddam.

In short, so weak has the U.S. position become, so inexorable is the pressure to
terminate the Iraqi sanctions regime and, therefore, to pretend that Saddam has
complied with his disarmament obligations, that it is now a matter of time,
perhaps just weeks, before what is left of the international sanctions start coming
undone.

• Kosovo: The Clinton strategy of pretending that the Serbian dictator,
  Slobodan Milosevic, is a
  man of peace has proven to be a similar disaster for long-term U.S. interests. To be sure, by so
  doing the President and his special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, negotiated what amounts to a
  lull in the fighting in one part of the Balkans. Even that has not come cheap, however. It has
  cost the United States (the military has been forced to bear the lion’s share) on the order of
  $10 billion to date, with no end in sight.

It was obvious to anyone who wished to see it, however, that a regional peace built
upon the likes of Milosevic — the greatest (albeit, as-yet-unindicted) war criminal of the
current era of Balkan genocide — would, at best, prove transitory. href=”#N_2_”>⁽²⁾ Now, in Kosovo,
his ethnic cleansing has resumed, the death toll of civilians steadily climbs and more
than a hundred thousand people are once again driven from their homes by Milosevic’s
thugs for the crime of being of non-Serbian extraction.

The common theme is that, here again, America’s adversary is acting with
impunity, confident that his friends like Primakov in the Kremlin and
Chirac in the Elysée Palace will protect him from any appreciable
retribution. And they can and will, as long as Clinton’s insistence on multilateral
approaches and U.N. Security Council subjects any strategy for dealing directly
with the source of the problem — the Butcher of Belgrade — to Security Council
mandates and multilateral coordination.

As a result of this approach, the U.S. is reduced to relying upon diplomatic
bluster, ineffective economic sanctions and participating in NATO air exercises
that punch holes in the sky over Albania. Unfortunately, the latter has proven —
like this Administration’s enforcement of no-fly zones over Iraq — to be an
operation of precious little strategic value. Such operations do, however, burn up
considerable taxpayer resources and contribute to the hemorrhage of skilled pilots
who want no part of the hollowed-out military that Mr. Clinton sees fit to use
only for such empty gestures and for extricating Americans caught in trouble
spots around the globe.

• Iran: As the Administration embarks on the umpteenth U.S. bid to find
  “moderates” in the
  Iranian leadership with whom we can “do business,” Tehran is demonstrating anew its
  determination to pose a threat to this country and its interests. With the recent launch of a
  ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear, chemical or biological weapons throughout much
  of the Middle East, including to Israel, Iran has arrived as a regional power to be reckoned
  with. Here again, it is a matter of time — possibly measured in months — before its missile
  program is able to pose a similar threat to Europe. In due course, the United States itself will
  be in the cross-hairs of the mullahs’ missiles.

Yet, the Clinton Administration refuses to deploy defenses to protect its people
against such a threat. Just as it has chosen to ignore evidence of Iranian involvement
in the penultimate terrorist attack on U.S. personnel abroad — the murderous
destruction of Saudi Arabia’s Khobar Towers, Mr. Clinton prefers to rely upon
Primakov’s lies that Russia is not assisting Iran’s missileers and futile diplomatic efforts
to dissuade North Korea from doing so.⁽³⁾

The Bottom Line

Thanks to the Clinton team, the precipitous decline in America’s credibility and perceived
willingness to use its power effectively assures that U.S. citizens and interests around the world
are going to be increasingly in peril. The real danger is that, unless the President reverses course
on his reckless opposition to protecting Americans at home against tomorrow’s terrorist threats,
our countrymen will not be able to stay out of harm’s way simply by fleeing trouble spots abroad.

In the end, there is no substitute for, if not Pax Americana, a strategic
environment in
which U.S. power is paramount and is wielded in a way that is respected by friends and
enemies alike.

– 30 –

1. See Sen. Lott Shows How and Secures Means to
Topple Saddam (No. 98-D 73, 28 April
1998), The Handwriting on the Iraqi Wall ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_65″>No. 98-D 65, 20 April 1998) and Father of a Free
Iraq? Iraqi National Congress’ Chalabi Details a Program for Liberating His Country From
Saddam (No. 98-P 39, 4 March 1998).

2. See Clinton Legacy Watch # 26: The
‘Feckless-izing’ of U.S. Security Policy (No. 98-D
112, 16 June 1998), Glaspie Redux in the Balkans: As With Saddam,
Appeasing — Rather
Than Resisting — Milosevic Is a Formula for Wider War ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_45″>No. 98-D 45, 11 March 1998) and
Clinton Legacy Watch # 4: Meltdown of Dayton Accords Is But the Latest Proof
That ‘Peace
Processes’ Produce No Peace (No. 97-D
127, 5 September 1997).

3. See A Policy Indictment: Sen. Cochran’s
Subcommittee Documents Clinton
Incompetence/Malfeasance on Proliferation (No. 98-D
04, 12 January 1998) and The French
and Russians Certainly ‘Don’t Get It’ on Iran — The Question Is: Does the Clinton-Gore
Team? (No. 97-C 148, 2 October 1997).