Sovereignty Surrender Watch # 2: Clinton Multilateralism Eroding American Interests, Rights on All Fronts

(Washington, D.C.): The disastrously ill-conceived deal brokered with Saddam
Hussein by UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan is bad enough. Worse yet is the fact that the Clinton
Administration actively aided and abetted this diplomatic non-solution — the latest proof of its
readiness to surrender U.S. sovereignty in pursuit of mindless multilateralism.

We now know that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her subordinates are fully
implicated in the orchestration and execution of this debacle that has bought Saddam Hussein time
and complicated further the one course of action that everyone from conservative Republican
Steve Forbes to liberal Democrat John Kerry understands has any chance of improving the
situation: the overthrow of Saddam’s regime. href=”#N_2_”>⁽²⁾

Unfortunately, the problem is much larger than one odious instance of, in Senate Majority
Leader
Trent Lott’s memorable turn of phrase, “contracting out U.S. foreign policy to the United
Nations.” The fact is that this Administration is subordinating American sovereignty in myriad
ways, to the detriment of our national interests and the rights inherent in our representative form
of government.

The UN ‘Debt’ Scam

For starters, consider the question of the “debt” the U.S. is said to owe the UN. The Clinton
team rarely misses an opportunity to join those who demean the United States for being “the
world’s biggest deadbeat” for failing to clean up some $1.3 billion in American arrears on
“assessments” by the international body. This assertion has recently been used to excuse the
UN’s diffidence to (or, more accurately, its contemptuous undermining of) Washington’s policies
towards Iraq.

The truth is that the U.S. does not owe the United Nations a dime. If anything, the
UN owes
us money, perhaps billions of dollars. According to a Congressional Research
Service study
undertaken at the request of Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, Republican of Maryland, the United States has
paid more than $11 billion for international peacekeeping operations for which it has received
little or no credit from the United Nations.⁽³⁾

Even now, for example, the United States is maintaining a substantial military presence in the
Persian Gulf for the purpose, the Clinton team incessantly declares, of ensuring Iraqi compliance
with various UN resolutions. Indeed, in the course of Secretary General Kofi Annan’s
self-congratulatory press conference following his mission to Baghdad, he called President Clinton
and
British Prime Minister “perfect peacekeepers” for the role their credible threat of force made to
his diplomatic “success.”

Although this operation is estimated to have cost the Pentagon as much as $750 million to
date,
such “perfect peacekeeping” is considered a voluntary service by the United States,
not an in-kind
contribution to the UN. Even the nearly $5 billion (by some estimates it is closer to $7 billion)
spent by the U.S. for peacekeeping in Bosnia — an operation specifically mandated by the UN
Security Council — is not credited to our account. Yet it is money that is unavailable to the
Defense Department for necessary readiness and modernization, compounding the deleterious
effect peacekeeping has on the fighting trim and morale of the U.S. military.

MAI Day

Scarcely less injurious to U.S. sovereignty and interests is the secretive effort the Clinton
Administration has been making for the past few years to negotiate a Multilateral Agreement on
Investment (MAI). This accord — which is said to be roughly 90% complete — would
ban any
restrictions on the movement of capital. It would require that all sectors of the U.S.
economy
(including the national security-sensitive broadcasting and natural resource industries) be opened
to foreign ownership. The MAI would require that foreign investors be made whole when their
assets have been expropriated, including as a result of “unreasonable” regulation.

The Multilateral Agreement on Investment would also compel the vitiation of U.S.
laws
that prohibit certain investments overseas, such as those aimed at curbing financial
assistance to the pariah Cuban and Iranian regimes. And the MAI would oblige this
country
to give “national treatment” to foreign investment offerings,
even if their purpose is inimical
to American interests (for example, to raise capital for the Chinese or Russian military-industrial
complexes).⁽⁴⁾

Last, but hardly least, dispute resolution under the MAI would be the responsibility of
international tribunals, rather than American courts. Subordination of U.S. sovereignty in this
manner is a particularly troublesome hallmark of the multilateralizers’ efforts. As the International
Court of Justice’s recent ruling in favor of Libya with regard to the Pan Am 103 bombing vividly
demonstrates, justice surrendered to foreign entities may be justice denied.

Enviro-Supranationalism

Then there is the matter of the Commission for Environmental
Cooperation, a tri-national
creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). At the request of an American
environmental organization, this commission has decided that it has to investigate the water
management problems of the Arizona city of Sierra Vista and its surrounding area. That
area
happens to include Fort Huachuca, an Army intelligence base in the desert. href=”#N_5_”>⁽⁵⁾

The local community is understandably concerned that, on the pretext of assessing the impact
on
migratory birds overflying the region — a matter having nothing to do with trade between the
United States, Canada and Mexico — foreign nationals will be able to demand and obtain access
even to sensitive U.S. military facilities. Sound familiar? Under the Chemical Weapons
Convention it forced through the Senate last year, the Clinton Administration has given
international inspectors bent on espionage for commercial or strategic purposes the right to
conduct intrusive visits to any site in the country.⁽⁶⁾ It now
proposes to compound the problem by
authorizing inspections in connection with the still-less-verifiable Biological Weapons
Convention.⁽⁷⁾

The Bottom Line

It is time for a moratorium on further Clinton-approved infringements on American
sovereignty.
Conceptualizing the need for such a step — let alone figuring out a way to accomplish it
legislatively — will only be possible, however, if Members of Congress are able to recognize that
these and other examples are just symptoms of the syndrome of mindless
multilateralism. As
troubling as such examples are, corrective actions to be effective must be aimed at the underlying
malady as well.

– 30 –

1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Will 1998 Be the ‘Year of Surrendered
Sovereignty’? (2. See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
This Is The Time To ‘Bash’ –Or At Least
Repudiate –The UN; Bipartisan, Bicameral Consensus Emerges That Saddam Must
Go (No.
98-D 36, 24 February 1998) and ‘Serious Consequences’: If Clinton Means It,
Here’s the
Alternative to His Failed Strategy of ‘Containing’ Saddam ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_33″>No. 98-D 33, 24 February 1998).

3. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Credit Where It Is Due: Rep. Bartlett Should Be
Commended, Supported For His Efforts to Show the UN Owes U.S. Money ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_123″>No. 97-D 123,
1997).

4. See the Casey Institute’s Perspective entitled
Sen. D’Amato’s Committee Serves Notice On
Those Who Aid And Abet U.S. Adversaries: No Fund-Raising On American
Markets (No. 97-C 161, 30 October 1997).

5. This is hardly the only instance of a multilateral environmental
agreement impinging upon U.S.
national security. For a discussion of the impact of the Kyoto Treaty see the Center’s Casey
Institute Perspective entitled The Senate Must Insist on an
Early Vote on the Kyoto Treaty
(No. 97-C 193, 15 December 1997).

6. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
C.W.C. Watch # 2: After First Six Months, Fear
About Treaty’s Unverifiability, Unjustified Costs & Ineffectiveness Vindicated
(No. 97-D 163,
1 November 1997).

7. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Clinton Legacy Watch # 18: Assured U.S.
Vulnerability in the Face of a Burgeoning Biological Warfare Threat ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_30″>No. 98-D 30, 20
February 1998).