‘No Confidence’: Why Advocates Of US Leadership, Engagement Want Clinton To Disengage From Somalia, Haiti

Somalia comes out, there is only one message that will be conveyed: Bipartisan majorities in the Congress lack confidence in President Clinton’s management — and that of his senior subordinates — of American foreign policy in general and their ability to make appropriate use of military power in particular.

Even if the President’s own position were to be fully sustained by the Senate, the resulting statutory imposition of a March 31st cut-off of U.S. operations in Somalia would amount to a complete repudiation of the mindless multilateralism preferred by Mr. Clinton and his senior foreign policy advisors. Were an amendment requiring a more rapid withdrawal of forces — clearly the preference of the vast majority of the American people — to be adopted, the low regard in which this President’s conduct of security policy is held would be even more dramatic and obvious.

Double Trouble?

Mr. Clinton would be in even bigger trouble on Capitol Hill but for his decision to retreat — at least temporarily — from the lunacy of inserting several hundred, effectively unarmed U.S. servicemen under U.N. command into the anarchy that is Haiti. The fact that he still promises to do so, however, sets the stage for additional political bloodletting in Washington aimed at averting the further, needless loss of American military personnel on this President’s watch.

President Clinton’s ultimate defeat on an intervention in Haiti is made even more predictable than in the case of Somalia, though, in view of the object of the exercise: After all, the announced purpose of the U.N. Haitian initiative is, in the name of democracy, to reinstall Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. It has been publicly reported, however, that U.S. intelligence believes Aristide to be a clinical psychotic, an individual who is sufficiently mentally unstable as to require medication and institutional treatment for depression and megalomania. The Center has learned, moreover, that he is addicted to the drugs that stabilize his condition.

At the very least, Aristide’s established record of anti-democratic behavior should give the Administration pause. CBS News reported last night that during the brief period when Aristide was president of Haiti he encouraged the "necklacing" of his political opponents, the practice of lighting gasoline-laden tires placed around the victim’s neck. Aristide said of necklacing, "What a beautiful tool, what a beautiful instrument, what a beautiful device, it’s beautiful, yes, it’s beautiful, it’s cute, it’s pretty, it has a good smell. Wherever you go you want to inhale it."

Thanks, But No Thanks

There is simply no appetite in the public at large — or among the preponderance of their elected representatives — to indulge in further on-the-job-training as Clinton officials sort out which of their cherished theories about the way the world ought to work are really non-starters. Already thoroughly discredited is the Clinton-Halperin Doctrine(1) that U.S. foreign policy decision-making should be largely subordinated to the authority of the United Nations. So to is the idea that the United States must be involved wherever the U.N. wishes to go, whether American strategic interests are involved or not. Next to go should be the idea that "nation-building" (whether in Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda, Sudan or Bosnia) can be conducted by the U.N. on any basis other than the long-term commitment of substantial quantities of well-armed forces capable of imposing and carrying out a form of multilateral colonialism.

Not Really Trying?

In the face of its dismal performance on the U.N. front, Clinton Administration officials are putting out the word that Somalia and Haiti are really sideshows and not indicative of the overall conduct of foreign policy by this president. They point to successes in supporting Boris Yeltsin in Russia and the forging of a peace between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization as evidence of effective stewardship in international matters — particularly those of great strategic importance to the United States.

This is, of course, a case of whistling past the graveyard. It is entirely premature to cite either the outcome of the recent crisis in Moscow or the Israeli-PLO agreement as unalloyed victories for the United States. If anything, Yeltsin’s new indebtedness to his military and Israel’s vastly more vulnerable security posture set the stage for dramatic setbacks for U.S. security policy and interests.(2)

In any event, to the extent that real credit is due for either of these developments, it is far from clear that such credit should go to the Clinton Administration. In the case of Russia, the Administration’s support may have been helpful to Yeltsin, but it was hardly decisive. It must also be asked, what alternative did the President really have to supporting Yeltsin? If anything, the fact that his support was not more conditional on Yeltsin’s actual performance on democratic and free market reform will probably contribute to a less satisfactory turn of events down the road.

And with respect to the Middle East, it is an open secret that the United States played no significant role in the diplomacy that led to the Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough. Its facilitation of the signing ceremony and leadership in the PLO fundraising drive that followed was, again, arguably helpful (if not determinative), but only to the extent that the end result is positive.

What We Should Be Doing Now

Given the profound lack of public and congressional confidence in President Clinton’s stewardship in foreign affairs — and the high probability that this perception will result in further rejections down the road of presidential commitments overseas — it is imperative that the President and his "inner circle" exercise far greater caution in undertaking them in the future.

The Center for Security Policy believes that, with the release this morning of the U.S. serviceman taken prisoner by General Aideed’s forces, the time has come for a prompt withdrawal of American forces from Somalia. This should be taken by executive action, without the necessity of congressionally imposed deadlines or funding cutoffs. As a practical matter, Somalia will be no less ungovernable now than it will be six — or four or two — months from now.

And, as there is no interest in the United States assuming (either unilaterally or as part of the United Nations) the responsibilities for a full-fledged, long-term colonial administration of Somalia — which is the only way the needed nation- and institution-building might proceed, the fastest possible removal of U.S. forces is the only way to prevent still further, indefensible casualties.

The Bottom Line

Absent any greater appetite to shoulder such a long-term commitment, U.S. forces should not be deployed to Haiti, Rwanda or Sudan. While a stronger case can be made (and has been by the Center in the past) for American engagement on behalf of the Bosnian Muslim victims of Serbian aggression, U.S. ground elements should not under present or foreseeable circumstances be deployed to Bosnia-Hercegovina. The principal reason: President Clinton and his civilian team cannot be relied upon to make appropriate use of such forces and to provide them with the requisite support.

The result of such misuses of U.S. power — and the military projects it — will not only be the deplorable and unnecessary loss of American lives. It will also be to discredit the appropriate use of force and make U.S. engagement in international affairs more problematic even as the forces needed to do so continue to be ravaged by reckless budget cuts.

For its part, Congress would be well-advised to ascertain just what commitments have already been made by Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright, or others — commitments that expose the United States to obligations to participate in multilateral peacekeeping or other missions or to pay for them. To this end, the Center for Security Policy recommends that joint hearings of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees be held at the earliest possible moment to take testimony from Ms. Albright and other Administration officials.

– 30 –

1. For more on the "Clinton-Halperin doctrine" enshrined in Presidential Decision Directive 13, see the Center’s recent Decision Brief entitled "The Tip of the Iceberg: U.S. Debacle in Somalia Foreshadows Clinton Security Policy Failures Beyond," (No. 93-D 88, 8 October 1993).

2. See in this regard, the Center’s recent Decision Briefs entitled "’Stop Payment’: The Case for Supporting Yeltsin by Not Disbursing Another $2.5 Billion Blank Check," (No. 93-D 86, 4 October 1993) and "’The Triumph of Hope over Experience’: Israeli Weariness Begets Strategic Peril," (No. 93-D 78, 12 September 1993).