Whose Foreign Policy, Mr. President?

(Washington, D.C.): As part of its “local color” reporting on the recently concluded summit in Moscow, yesterday’s New York Times reports an anecdote that offers extraordinary confirmation of the contempt President Clinton (and many others in his Administration) feel for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. According to the Times:

[On the margins of one of the few meetings with Putin she was permitted to attend,] Dr. Albright used a fashion statement to make her own policy point with the Russians. As Mr. Putin shook Dr. Albright’s hand before a meeting on Sunday, Mr. Clinton tried to explain the meaning of the three brown pins depicting monkeys on the lapel of her jacket. They represent, “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” Mr. Clinton said. “That’s Madeleine’s entire foreign policy.”

While a press flak later tried to explain that the President’s remark was “only a joke,” it is hard to imagine that it failed to have a serious effect: underscoring an impression most of America’s interlocutors already have reached — the Secretary of State does not “pack the gear” with Mr. Clinton, any more than she does with most of the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, Mr. Clinton’s “joke” is even less funny since, the last time we checked, the Secretary of State is supposed to help formulate and execute U.S. foreign policy, but the proverbial buck stops with the President. If the shoe labeled “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” fits anybody’s foreign policy, it is that of the President, not simply his senior subordinates.

A Bill of Particulars

The tenor and thrust of the Clinton foreign policy has spawned altogether too many examples of his Administration’s reluctance to recognize, let alone confront evil, in the world. The following are illustrative:

See No Evil: A New York Times article in November 1998 disclosed that in 1995 Vice President Al Gore chose not to be “bothered with the facts” — even though they called into question the premises of a foreign policy initiative in which he and the rest of the Clinton Administration had hugely over-invested. Specifically, he wanted to remain untroubled by evidence of the failure of unqualified U.S. “support” for so-called Russian “reformers” led by then-President Yeltsin and then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. As the Times reported:

When the CIA uncovered what its analysts considered to be conclusive evidence of the personal corruption of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin of Russia in 1995, they sent it to the White House, expecting Clinton administration officials to be impressed with their work. Instead, when the secret CIA report on Chernomyrdin arrived in the office of Vice President Al Gore, it was rejected and sent back to the CIA with a barnyard epithet scrawled across its cover, according to several intelligence officials familiar with the incident.

At CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, the message seemed clear: The Vice President did not want to hear allegations that Chernomyrdin was corrupt and was not interested in further intelligence reports on the matter. As a result, CIA analysts say they are now censoring themselves.

Hear No Evil: The Administration has continually turned a deaf ear towards the hateful and violent speeches and other propaganda routinely served up by officials of the Palestinian Authority (PA). This is not because such information is not readily available. The Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI) does an extraordinary public service by identifying, translating and promptly disseminating statements by the senior leadership of the PA that show its true purpose: A continuing commitment to the liberation of all of “Palestine” — an outcome that can only be achieved through “holy war” or jihad leading to the ultimate destruction of the State of Israel.

Worse yet, the Clinton-Gore Administration is not just ignoring the words; it refuses to acknowledge the PA’s deeds, either, including: the recruiting of a far larger and far more heavily armed “police force” than is permitted under Oslo; refusing actually to rid the PLO Charter of any of the 30 out of 33 provisions that call for Israel’s elimination or violence against Jews; rapidly releasing terrorists after they have engaged in deadly attacks against Israel; and relentlessly using maps — including in Palestinian children’s textbooks — conveying the powerful symbolic message of a “Palestine” comprising Gaza, the entire West Bank and all of Israel.

Speak No Evil: In April 1998, the New York Times reported that President Clinton made an extraordinary admission in the course of a “drop-by” — an unscheduled appearance at a White House meeting convened by National Security Advisor Samuel Berger with leading supporters of legislation that would apply U.S. sanctions to protecting religious freedom overseas. According to the Times, Mr. Clinton told the group:

“What always happens if you have automatic sanctions legislation is it puts enormous pressure on whoever is in the executive branch to fudge an evaluation of the facts of what is going on. And that’s not what you want. What you want is to leave the president some flexibility, including the ability to impose sanctions, some flexibility with a range of appropriate reactions.” (Emphasis added.)

Then today, a senior Administration official — the State Department’s Associate Legal Advisor for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Mary Elizabeth Hoinkes — declined at the last moment to participate in a long-scheduled Capitol Hill symposium on the legal status of the 1972 Anti- Ballistic Missile (AMB) Treaty. This impressive symposium was chaired by Ambassador Max Kampelman and sponsored by the National Institute for Public Policy.

It offered the first opportunity for an authoritative debate between the Clinton-Gore Administration, which insists the ABM Treaty remains legally binding, and its critics, like former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, whose legal analysis persuasively argues that, under international law, the treaty had to have lapsed when the other party, the USSR, became extinct. The real evil arising from such a failure to speak is that the Administration is not being fully challenged, or opposed, as it seeks — in the words of the Joint Declaration of Principles issued at last weekend’s summit — to “enhance the viability” of the ABM Treaty.

The Bottom Line

Like President Clinton’s hurtful quip/slight to Mrs. Albright, the full import of his “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” foreign policy is no joke. The Nation will be reaping the consequences of his cognitive dissonance, superciliousness and dishonesty in this arena for years to come.